A little adjustment...

[lloyd3]

The 18-spline in my car was rebuilt back in 2013. At that time, I had seriously considered having my shifter re-bushed as well by the Hurst folks as they were actively advertising said service but...I'd poured a pile of money into the re-do of the car and simply couldn't justify yet another added-expense. This car has never really shifted as smoothly as I had hoped-for since then, reverse was always a minor grind, downshifting into second was never seamless, and the upshift-synchro in third was never quite-right. About every 3rd or 4th shift wasn't positive.  I wrote it all off to me not re-doing the shifter, and/or perhaps getting a less-than-stellar rebuild, grumbling about it to myself every time I had to fight with it. My health and and personal life had never allowed for me to calmly sit down and fully evaluate the problem until yesterday.  My son was struggling with the very-same shifting issues as he was driving the car out in the boonies southeast of Denver (school starts tomorrow and I've been trying to make his last few days of Summer significant). I finally contemplated just what could be causing these on-going gremlins, and as we pulled the car back in the garage I though to myself..."darn it, I'm going to make some adjustments to see if I can improve things a bit".  My floor jack was missing it's handle (my garage had been been re-organised in the last few years!), so I had to shimmy my aged-carcass under the car w/o the benefit of any comfortable space from that now very-warm driveline.  I turned the shift lever adjustment bolt in about 2 1/2 full revolutions to start (increasing the throw-length), dragged myself back-out from under and then backed the car onto the street.  It was like I had totally changed-out the transmission...."like an axe chunking into soft wood" were the words used in Dodge's advertising for changing gears on the '68 Charger R/T four speed, and mine was now just like that. I couldn't believe it!  I've put up with this misery (for lack of a better description) for almost 5-years and all it took to fix it was 5-minutes and 9/16 box-end wrench.

[metallicareload99]

...I turned the shift lever adjustment bolt in about 2 1/2 full revolutions to start (increasing the throw-length)...

The rod going from the torque shaft/z-bar to the clutch fork?  As I was reading your description I kept thinking, not enough air gap to fully release the clutch.  Glad you got it sorted out.  It's amazing how big the results are from the smallest adjustments down there!

[lloyd3]

metallicareload99: Amen to that one. What's so frustrating is that I had test driven the car with the tranny shop owner and he said that it was as good as he could make it. Since he was the "expert" I took his word for it and didn't screw with it myself for all this time. Shame on me for not trusting my own instincts and experience with these cars.

[67440chrg]

Its good it worked out for you. I have been in the same place before with my old beaters. The contemplating is worst than the fix. Now see how many gears it will break them loose in.