Improving shifting

Challenge car has a ford toploader 3 speed manual transmission. Also called a Dearborn or 3.03

Has an OLD indy universal floor shift conversion on it.

Trans is full of 60wt oil. Fluid came out clean.

The thing hates to shift from first to second. Never had it in third yet, so unknown there.

Throws are incredibly long. The horizontal gate it a tough bitch to find sitting still, let alone trying to shift fast. Doesn't seem to grind like bad synchronizeers.

So, what no money fixes can we throw at it? Ways to shorten shifts? Directions on adjustments? Pretty much open to anything to make shifting better as long as its cheap and or free.

The shifter arms on the side of the trans are simple little pieces. Make new ones that the linkage hole is closer to the hole for shift rail. That will shorten the shift throw. You could take the shifter apart and clean and lube it, you may find some worn out bushings. I think they are still available for cheap.

We already cleaned and lubed. Will make shorter shift arms.

Will lengthening the shifter end cause shorter throw as well?

As far as adjustment goes, i havent worked with a universal shifter, but on the better hurst shifters they have a hole through the shifter assembly that you put a pin in to align all the pieces, then with the trans in neutral you adjust the rods to proper length to match. If you find yourself in Shelby county OH hit me up, ill let you dig through my box o' hurst stuff to see if theres anything you need.

In reply to Dusterbd13:

Yep, effectively raising he pivot point will shorten the throw.

The trade off is that the shifting effort will get worse, so you may need to experiment a bit.

How is it to shift at the transmission itself? If you remove the shift arms and manually manipulate things is it still hard to shift?

That should help you find where the issue is. The shifter/linkage or the transmission.

Dusterbd13 wrote: We already cleaned and lubed. Will make shorter shift arms. Will lengthening the shifter end cause shorter throw as well?

Yes, someone better than me at math could tell you how much of a length change would be right to get the shift throws the length you want

Theres no alignment hole on this one. If i was closer to Ohio, id definitely take you up on the offer.

But, you gave me an idea. Weld the holes on the shifter, and ream to tighter tolerance. May take some slop and bind out. Or would it cause more bind?

Well, i have plenty of scrap. Trial and error may work

Different fluid? Also, verify that your clutch is releasing.

I did this by cutting a hole in the bottom of the bellhousing and having somebody else push the clutch. You should be able to put a 30 thou shim between the disc and flywheel or pressure plate.

Dusterbd13 wrote: Theres no alignment hole on this one. If i was closer to Ohio, id definitely take you up on the offer. But, you gave me an idea. Weld the holes on the shifter, and ream to tighter tolerance. May take some slop and bind out. Or would it cause more bind?

I was thinking you were in ohio, i must have had you confused with Pat. Taking the slop out of the holes will take some slop out of the shifter, if you have a slip fit and a little grease it shouldnt cause a bind. On mine on the trans end of the rods they have plastic bushings, could yours be missing?

We already went from 85/90 to 60wt. Next step would be atf.

As far as clutch release, we can go from 1st to reverse when stopped with no issue. Reverse is non synchro.

Operating the lefers on tbe trans by hand doesn't require much effort at all, so we have that going for us.

Oooh. The bushings may be. I know my old hurst box on the duster had steel bushings, ill see if we can use a set here.

I also thought about rod ends. But that may be overkill here.

No money fix, the old drag racer "slick shift" trick. You can supposedly take it apart and use a die grinder to very carefully take off every other spline on the gear and slider, the extra space between the splines makes the synchro work twice as effectively.

Hard to shift at how many RPM? 60wt oil is actually thicker than 80-90 gear lube. The two scales are different, 80W-90 gear lube is the same viscosity as something like a 20w50 engine oil.

60wt castrol tws engine oil. Same as what the zf six speeds used, as i had it left over from changing the fluid in a zf.

Im truly thinking its the shifter. Id like to begin there, but dont know any way to confirm before i chase the wrong thing.

I've got that 3 speed in my bronco with a hurst floor shifter. I filled it up with some modern lube (I can't recall what) and it made it grind like hell. Refilled with sta-lube GL-4 85/90 and it improved significantly.

Take the shift rods off at the transmission. There are two flat metal levers that turn the stuff internally. Each one of those two has a left, center, and right click. Both in center is neutral. If one is off-center, it should prevent the other one from leaving center.

Also they should turn cleanly by hand into very definitive detents. No slop from any position.

A little play (1/16-1/8") movement of the rods that come out of the transmission, axially along that rod, is ok.

One of the arms is R and 1. The other is 2 and 3. Perhaps the shifter mechanism is holding the R-1 rod slightly out of its center detent while pushing on the 2-3 rod. The transmission will not allow the 2-3 to move in that case, no matter how hard you push. Not a synchro issue then. Adjust the linkage length for the R-1 rod from the shifter.

Cool! Will attempt.

Im used to new process stuff, and t5 variants. Never messed with a toploader of any fashion.

Makes perfect sense to me though. Or it may be something is worn enough that its getting bound up under movement, but not parked. Good ideas to check.

Makes sense that you can go R-1 when stationary - it's the same rod forward and back. Remove the rods from the transmission side, I bet the shifter has some internal bind. Again, may be due to rod length needing adjustment.

More info: http://broncohq.com/pdf/66-77/chassis/66773speedmanual.pdf

Basically, lock the shifter in neutral (shown in the doc with a pin in the column shift) and set both arms on the transmission in the neutral detents. Then adjust the end of each threaded rod to fit in the holes without moving anything.

Dusterbd13 wrote: 60wt castrol tws engine oil. Same as what the zf six speeds used, as i had it left over from changing the fluid in a zf.

Everything I have seen for the ZF transmissions is that they need ATF. I changed the oil in my ZF5 from what defiantly looked like some heavy gear oil to ATF and it smoothed out up shifts significantly and made it actually possible to downshift without grinding into gear or having to rev match, it was truly a night-and-day difference. From what i've seen from the interwebs for the ZF6 is that most people do some homebrewed blend of ATF/oil.

Castrol 10-60 in the zf from a 1990ish vette. I remember having to buy a case, and dont remember the owner having any complaints afterwards.

I may wind up at atf in this one though. Definitely going to look closer at the shifter though.

Have you tried synchromesh from Pennzoil? Works pretty good with transmissions that have brass and bronze in them.

It's been a decade or so since I messed with a Ford top loader three speed so there may be some magic gear lube that's available now that wasn't available then but at that time nothing seemed to work better than a synthetic 80w90 gear lube. As far as the shifter is concerned start with the bushings and an adjustment. The bushings are in what Hurst calls a pit pack and they're about $15.00.

If you want to mess with linkage geometry I'd start with a shorter shift handle. When you change arm length on the transmission or shifter you can run into travel issues.

I bought a rebuild kit for my toploader four speed from a guy that specializes in only toploaders. He said that some people have synchronizer issues when using high end synthetic stuff, I think his explanation was its too slippery. He recommended just regular old fashioned gear oil.

really it may seem Old School but the oil recommended by Ford is the Right Oil. David Kee is who you want to ask Questions,nice guy. check out his Site.

I have that trans in my Cougar. Took the car on some local sales calls today and put about 100 miles on her.

I purchased a TKO-600 for a near future swap from a Detroit area trans place called D&D Performance. It's owned by a father and son team. I worked with Don Walsh Sr., a retired Ford engineer and drag racer back in the day (early Fox body era). Don asked me the usual questions and then proceeded to tell me how his early years at Ford were on the development team of the 3.03 transmission. He was the directly involved with helping Ford do a prototype install on an early GTO for John DeLorean when the GM three speed at the time was failing. It was great story about GM dropping off a GTO at the Ford Livoni drivetrain plant where Don and his team then pulled the GM trans and installed the Ford box. GM took the car back and subjected it to merciless beatings which Ford expected. The trans held up but according to Don GM complained some months in to the testing about one synchro not quite being smooth to engage . Don asked his counterpart at GM if they'd been in to the transmission and was assured they hadn't. GM returned the car to Ford and Don and team tore it apart only to confirm that the trans had been opened and torn apart as one of the syncho's wasever so slightly different than the other two-not enough for a bench inspection to differentiate according to Don. When the trans was put back together GM had installed one of the synchros with the wrong mating piece. It was reassembled by Don and team and handed back to GM. It subsequently was approved for sale and was known as the GM Livonia 3 speed.

I love this area and the amazing stories and connections that seemingly spring up from a simple car guy conversation!

I'm wondering about Redline MT-85, a synthetic 75w85 manual trans fluid. It's GL-4 so good for gold colored syncro's.

Wear in the external shifter bits does sound like a good place to find improvement, though, from what I've read so far.