C4 floor shifter compat.

Hey all!
I have a 74 ford granada c4 in my 71 mav. Wondering if any junkyard floor shifters will work? Plan B would be to get a universal B&M floor shifter, but im trying to be thrifty. Anyone use a commonly found floor shifter on their C4? thanks

 

You have a really rare trans, there were no '74 Granadas...

Generally no column shift transmission can use a factory floor shifter as the manual lever is angled at approx 45* toward front of vehicle... The linkage type floor shifters almost always require the lever to be pointing straight upward when in neutral, so they angle to rear when in park and foward in the lower gears...

 

You can use Mustang/Pinto shifters, but like Tom said you will also have to swap out the shift lever on the trans to the floor shift style.

 

* '77 Granda, sorry

 

I used on from a 69 - 73 Mustang to convert mine. Bought it on evilbay, don't recall the price but cheap enough for me.

 

With consideration of the floor shift vs column shift comments, I will be trying to fit a 69-73 Mustang floor shift linkage into my stock 72 Maverick C4 floor shifter tomorrow. I will let you know how it goes. Mustang floor shift parts are more common than Maverick parts. Mustangs unlimited etc.

 

No good news from me. Nothing worked right at all. With my stock floor shifter in 1st, the linkage lines up perfectly with the tranny 1st gear. With the shifter in Park, the linkage lines up close to Reverse (off 1 gear). Makes no sense to me, I can't believe the C4s had different tranny shift arms or different angle rotations to change gears, but maybe so. My Floor shifter is stock 1972 and my tranny is a 1964 "Green Dot", so that might be the problem. I want to keep the stock floor shifter, but it's not lookin good. I may need to go to a universal adjustable floor shifter, ughhh.

First, perfect!



Park, ughh

 

It all has to match. The shifter "arm" from the floor shifter to the trans.....and then the linkage on the side of the trans.

I know Toporanger (I think that is his name on here) sells the tranny linkage. It is a brand new product that he makes.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm thinking this is all a big geometry problem. If I'm lucky, I can just extend the shifter arm slightly so it moves the linkage further. I know it can be more complicated than that, but I'm gonna figure it out and make me some adaptors. Probably won't work, but I'm stubborn!

As for the original thread (noodeldood2), since you have a mix of parts, I hope this helps you recognize that it's unlikely to find something out of a junkyard that will work without some modifications. Universal is probably the way to go if you don't mind changing from stock.

 

Success today. I did my calculations and added 1/2 inch to the shifter arm to get the desired full travel from 1st to park. With this, some bends and elongating the linkage slots, I was able to make the linkage work for my setup. This is a 1972 stock Maverick Floor Shifter, 1964 C4, and a 1967-68 Mustang linkage. Long day, but happy to get it working.

I was thrown off much of the day. There seems to be about 1/4" of front/back play with the shifter set in each position (handle not moving, but arm does). I suspect that is for slop to allow the linkage to settle exactly where it needs to be. In any case, I checked it out many times and every gear ends up aligning near perfect with the shifter positions. Again, sorry about hijacking the thread, but I think there is some useful info in here for noodeldood2.

 

Hey I am looking into doing this as well. I was wondering from looking at these pictures...it looks like you basically extended the shifter "bar??" (the z bar looking bar). But what I cannot tell is...is the slot on the linkage bar drilled out?

Say if I were looking straight on would that sort of line up? In other words did you modify the long black linkage rod any?

Or was all you did was make that little adapter piece?

Thanks for those pictures and any help/advise is much appreciated!

 

1) I cut some of the "z bar" since it would interfere with the stock nut
2) I fabricated the extension out of 1" x 1/4" bar stock (probably overkill)
3) I did elongate the slot in the linkage bar slightly with a burr grinder (probably about 1/4 inch or less)
4) I did some minor bends in the shifter bar to clear everything (brake line etc). The bar is not easy to bend.
5) I will weld this up once I get some time on the transmission to confirm it works right.

Good Luck, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one dealing with this. I was a little worried I'm doing something not so good.

 

I know that these came standard with a rod. Melvin's sells a cable. Maybe that would work?

http://www.parts123.com/parts123/yb...~S4A314YYV114910111749b~Z5Z5Z5~Z5Z5Z50001018o

Micah

 

I used a "Hyme Linkage" (aka: Hyme Joint" at he transmission end. That way I can precisely adjust the linkage length.
I used a 1970 Mustang shifter on my 1970 Maverick. The linkage is a hybrid: part manual 3-speed linkage at the shifter, welded to a 3/8 steel rod that I bent. And, threaded at the transmission side to the Hyme Joint.
After the fact, I didn't know that all I had to do was to "flip" 180 the transmission select lever.
I bought a "Grabber" two sided shift lever....which, I really don't need.

 

My car is column shift and I really don't want to open up the tranny to flip the lever to point up....Seems to me you could use a cable but in a "backwards" way? have the cable behind the floor shifter. Mount a bracket similar to the B&M to the tranny for the cable and hook to the "bottom" tip of the lever. Would that not pull the bottom of the shift lever from park to the other gears and basically "push" to back to park?

Unless I am seeing the lever wrong.

So if the shift lever points down and the fartherest tip of this lever is pointing to the front of the car....what position is it in? Park or L1?