[Brimstone]

Hey All,

Been having some problems with my shifter lately and hoped that someone can help shed some light on it, or confirm my suspicions.

First off, the car in question:
1978 Pontiac Trans Am
Pontiac 400
BW ST-10 4spd manual (rebuilt myself a couple years ago)
Centerforce dual-friction clutch
4.10 posi rear

The shifter in question is a Hurst Competition/Plus shifter of the stock replacement variety (so that it can be used with the original console) that has no more than 4,000 miles on it. During normal, everyday driving it works fine (normal shift pattern is 1-3-4 cause of the axle gears) - rattles a bit, but otherwise fine, but I've started taking it to the track lately (twice, so far) and each time I've had some sort of problems.

The problem is that the shifter sometimes jams on the 2-3 shift, right when it changes which lever it's actuating. The handle gets jammed so that it looks like it's in neutral, but you cannot move the lever an appreciable amount - which causes the transmission to be stuck in 2nd gear. Now to fix this after it happens requires getting under the car and flipping the 1-2 trans lever back to the neutral position - which will free up the shifter and everything will be golden again. So far I've only made 10 trips down the 1/4, but I've had this problem happen 2 times - almost 3 times.

Sometime in the near-term I'm gonna give it a twice-over to see what I can do about it - check the transmission shift levers, re-check alignment, check spring clips/bushings, etc, but has anyone else experienced something like this before, or maybe know something else I might need to check? I'm also wondering if having the shifter mounting bolts torqued in/correctly might be a factor? There isn't enough room in the tunnel to get a torque wrench up there, so I had torqued the bolts as hard as I could get 'em with a wrench. I safety-wired the bolts, so I know they haven't backed-out (had that happen once before, which is why they're safety-wired now), but I don't know if 10 or 20 ft/lbs of torque would make that much of a difference.

Thanks,
Mike

[fred56]

Should be a simple fix - take the shift rods off the arms and make sure that the bushings are in good shape and that each shift rod just slides into the bushing when in neutral. There should be a hole in each arm(on the base of the shifter that the rods connect to) that you can put a welding rod thru (all three shift arms at one time)to make sure that everything is in alignment, this ensures that there will be no binding on the shift.
Jerry