transmission shift lever

[Tom Endy]

In the past few months I have had two customers bring me a transmission tower for rebuild. They also brought along a reproduction shift lever they bought. I suspect they all come from the same place somewhere in Taiwan, regardless of the supplier.

The first customer had the lever snap off just above the large pivot ball. The supplier was reluctant to take it back because he had had it for several months. After some wrangling the supplier sent him another in exchange. This one had a visible crack just above the ball. This one was also returned. The third shift lever was the one I installed, and I wished him good luck with it.

I have heard stories of a number of these reproduction shift levers snapping off.

The second customer's shift lever I installed just a few days ago. When I finished I found I could not move the lever, the small ball was jammed in the fork slots. The forks I used as replacements were originals with little or no wear.

I disassembled the tower and measured the diameter of the small ball and found it was .520". My understanding is that it should be .490" to easily fit into the .500" fork slots. I had to grind some material off the ball to get it to fit. I suspect the chrome plating may have been the culprit. I have a jig I use to grind the weld on an original that has been welded up.

The moral to this story is that there are some very poor quality reproduction transmission shift levers in the Model A kingdom. So beware.

Tom Endy