Has anyone built their own automatic shifter?

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hotwheels

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Joined
Mar 7, 2010
Messages
324
Location
Wyoming
Instead of buying a lokar shifter for my 47 ford, i have been pondering building my own shifter set up. Has anyone done this on an automatic? Any tips on doing such?
 
good question love to heard what others have to say. [P
my dad's rat has a home build shifter on a 727 torque flight. sorry no pictures to offer from me, I'll see if he has some to share from the build. (street sign are covering it up[dr)
 
It has been done, and I even started building one for my 23 at one time. Then the realization that it just wasn't safe set in and I broke down and bought a Lokar.

If you have ever had a transmission change gears while at speed, you know it is not a pleasant experience..........especially in a light hot rod. For a while my Lokar wasn't adjusted tight enough and on the Interstate when I would hit a bridge surface it would drop into 2nd. Scared the Bejesus out of me every time it happened and I thought a loud truck was passing me, but it was my own engine screaming at 70 mph in 2nd.

There is a girl named Megan who had a nice little T bucket and when she went over some rough pavement her T dropped into 2nd and she ended up upside down against a guardrail. She was thrown clear, luckily, but had rib and lung damage.

Here is her car after that crash.

wreckedtbucket5-1.jpg


Don
 
I would prefer to be safe then sorry. Thanks a bunch for showin my what could happen and i dang sure don't want that after all this work.
 
shifter

If you don't want to pay for a Locar just go the bone yard and pick one out. You can get one for a ford or chevy what ever you are using. I use a Ford van shifter for a chevy 700r4 you may need to change the hook up point on the arm to make it work. Just mount everything and go through the shifts and for each one make sure the connecting rod with slip out and back in. (Both the trans and the shifter have detents were they stop for each point)That way you are sure each shift point matched up with the shifter and the trans. park, reverse, first, second and drive. The one from the ford van was a nice height for a street or rat rod.[cl

Some of the newer models have a shift cable connecting between the 2 you could mount the shifter in the back seat for your backseat driver to choose which dirrection you go[S
 

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