Shifter, that is.

Back when I put the AOD in the Heap I was advised to use a late model Mustang cable shifter or an aftermarket piece such as a Lokar. Even though our car is very modified, I like keeping the look of the original as much as possible or practical so neither option really appealed to me so I retimed the stock shifter to work with the AOD.

Well now I'm moving to a 4R70W so more shifter mods are required. The trans I'm using came from an Explorer and apparently had a cable shifter. The selector arm is up and has a very convenient ball fitting for the linkage. Tweaking the shifter timing was fairly simple, just requiring adding a bit to the arm and moving the shift rod hole down about an inch.  That extra piece on the back side of the arm was required for AOD timing.


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While I was at it I also added lockout steps for second and first gear.



Then things started getting tricky. The 4R70W has to have a switch to tell the PCM to block or allow overdrive and that momentary switch is normally built into the shifter. It could be mounted anywhere but I decided to try to put it in the shifter.
I found out real quick that there isn't a lot of room inside that shifter stalk for wires. So I needed to find some really small wires. This circuit doesn't have to carry a lot of current, just provide a 12v signal. So I stripped a pair of wires from a piece of two-pair phone cord...just slightly heavier than frog hair.
Then I made the necessary modifications to get the wires in there so they wouldn't be pinched or cut by the shift lock mechanism.
First I cut a small notch at the upper end of the lock dog where it meets the spring. This allows the wires to exit the stalk between the spring and the top of the lock dog.




I discovered that the wires could pass through the plastic parts at the top of the stalk without a problem but it got a bit tight putting the T handle on.
So I used a carbide burr to cut shallow troughs into the right side and stalk side of the "T".






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For the switch I found a very small momentary switch that fits inside a monified "dead" button on the right side of the "T" and super glued an aluminum extention onto the button.





All assembled it looks completely stock except for the tiny button on the right side of the "T" and the P R N D 2 1 dial I installed from a 67 shifter.



BB1

Last edited by Bullet Bob (11/17/2020 4:35 PM)