Gear Shifting Adjustments After Side Shift Conversion, Who needs 5th gear anyway? Options

[BeatNavy]

Ok, got my 2056 and a refreshed side shifter into my '72. Managed to the get the Fuel Injection and Ignition bits sorted out (after dealing with a wonky CHT circuit (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif) ). After the 1.7L and a tail shifter I was pretty excited to try the 2056 and side shift. I used the Tangerine firewall bushing and installed the Tangerine shift adjuster up at the selector. Dr Evil refreshed my gear stack, but I assembled the tranny package.

After firing her up and taking her for a ride, I noticed I only had R, 2nd, and 4th. A quick review of Chris' always excellent notes/instructions for the firewall bushing show that if you don't have 1st, 3rd, and 5th the shift coupler at the firewall may be hitting the firewall and require some grinding and moving the shift rod forward (or in extreme cases moving the tranny forward). Well, I did some grinding with it still hooked up using a dremel. After a couple of tries I could sort of get 1st and 3rd, although they wanted to pop out. I think I've gone about as far as I can. In the process, I managed to find 1st gear somewhat reliably, and after working with the selector adjustment tool I managed to find 3rd. Still no 5th nor hint of it.

Everything seems REALLY biased toward the driver's side, and it takes real effort (muscle force) pushing the selector to the left to get the gears. If I move it the 1/R combo more toward center I lose 3rd gear.

I love how the side shifter feels solid (much less slop), but it would be swell to have 5th gear and not have to force everything as much as I do. What are your thoughts in terms of issues or next steps?

1. I assembled the tranny -- did I not get the gear stack in neutral when assembling the console? That was my initial thought when I couldn't find so many gears, but now I have 5 out of 6. Is this still a possibility?

2. Do I need to grind the coupler down even MORE or move the tranny forward (not sure exactly how to do that)? There is probably room, but I thought I was actually starting to run out of shift rod.

3. Could this be related to the fact that I still feel the front of my engine is low by about an inch (I've confirmed that I have late-style engine mounts at this point)? I know the linkage is moving freely through the engine bar and not hitting anything.

4. Another variable is the clutch tube -- when I repaired it last year after it broke off, I often felt like it was sometimes or somehow interfering with the shift selector. Could that be messing me up?

Thanks for any and all help.

[BeatNavy]

Driving home from work today I was determined to get this thing adjusted correctly. I had all gears except 5th, but finding 3rd was hit or miss, and sometimes it would pop out. When I do have a gear, it's so much better than the tail shift in terms of "feel," and that 2056 is sweet with the Triad exhaust.

After giving it some effort trying to move the front rod farther forward, I finally put it up on jack stands to see if I could move the entire engine / tranny backward. Don't think I was successful. I loosened up the tranny mount bolts and the engine bar mount bolts. It didn't seem to go anywhere though. Moving the tranny into gear manually from the console I still seemed to get the coupler hitting up against the bushing before I was confident it was going fully into gear.

Then I took a couple of steps backward when I managed to get the rod disconnected from the precision shifter in the tunnel and then got the plastic ring (that engages the worm gear) too far down the shift rod (not sure how that happened). Alright, F-it -- I had to take the rear shift rod out completely to grind it down some more and gain more clearance and move the front rod forward enough in the tunnel to find the plastic ring.

Now I can't get the shift rod coupler to connect to the front shift rod. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) Family finally quit on helping me for the night and made me come in and eat dinner. I hope I didn't mushroom the end of the rod by tapping it through the firewall or screw up the coupler with the grinder. Not sure why it won't go on now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif) Tomorrow I'll try sanding it down gently.

I'll get this mother one way or another. Thanks for everyone's help and especially to Chris for supporting his products and answering my stupid questions.