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| Joined: | 03-12-2005 |
| Location: | Kingman, Arizona USA |
| Posts: | 532 |
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As I noted in an earlier post, ever since my new transmission mount settled in, my car's shift lever hits the cigar lighter when shifting to reverse. The town I live in is oddly lacking in aluminum vendors with a wide assortment of stock, so rather than spend an hour on the road to visit the nearest provider, I instead ordered a 2-foot length of 1+1/2" wide 6061T6 aluminum from 'Aircraft Spruce'. As they did not have 1/8" thick bars in this width and material, I bought a 1/4" thick bar instead. Usual disclaimers, but their price was surprisingly low and shipping charges were reasonable.
Using 1/4" rather than 1/8" stock, but otherwise following the plan that Ken Neff has followed through on, I fabricated a simple spacer -- cut to length, two slightly oversize holes, and deburring -- to fit atop the transmission mount. Installation was easy enough, and the car's shift lever now just avoids contact with the cigar lighter when shifting to reverse. Another 1/4" spacer, either top or bottom, would restore things to essentially their original orientation, and I may try that eventually.
I'll mention here that the bolts holding the upper side of the transmission mount to the transmission do in fact use a coarse thread rather than the fine thread my notes erroneously stated. Well, I was suspicious about that. In any event, the original bolt, Jensen P/N 65157, is fully identified as 5/16"-18 tpi x 3/4" long, Grade 5. Mine were the same UK brand (GKN) used almost everywhere on my car, and initially had a black oxide surface.
Naturally, when a 1/4" thick spacer is added between transmission and mount, a somewhat longer bolt will be required if full engagement of the threads in the transmission foot is to be guaranteed (a highly desirable condition). Fortunately, the holes in the foot go all the way through, so one can use a bolt quite a bit longer than necessary, if desired. I ended up using 1+1/4" long bolts as they were what I had to hand and I won't need new hardware if I should ever install an additional spacer at the top.