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All, I'm installing a T-5 in my '66 daily driver. Is there a need for a shifter seal that fits on the outside of the car between the transmission and the floorboards? It seems this would be needed to stop splashing from leaking into the interior. The transmission came with a stock shifter seal, but it looks like it mounts on the interior side. Thanks. Heem
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In the Fox body cars, as well as the classics the shifter seals all install from inside the car. There's nothing up inside the trans tunnel.
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Yes, you need something to seal the shifter BODY to the car floor. I used a Fox Mustang lower shifter boot. Then the upper one is mostly for looks, but you will not have fumes and noise coming up from below. The pic shows what one looks like. I bent the side of mine so it wrapped over the passenger side of the tranny hump. I also cut the floor open to the side so I can get wrenches in there to remove the shifter if necessary. This was a complete custom floor build, so I doubt most will want to go to that extreme to install a T5. I welded some nuts under the tunnel so the bolts have something to thread into.
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Here is one that was recently posted showing the factory installation. Looks like the SN95 boot is same or very similar to the Fox.
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Depending on which shifter you use and which shift lever, they may not fit the hole in the boot just right. The one you are looking at in the above picture is in a 95 GT but has a short throw after market shifter and has been adapted to the stock lever. It has pretty mush destroyed the hole in the rubber boot because of the shape and size of the stem on the shifter which is short and puts the bolts down there too. It sure shifts nice though!
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Funny, my buddy and I were just talking about this. He has an SN95 Cobra, I have an '89 GT. We've know each other for about 20 years now and wrenched on each others cars quite a bit. He got tired of breaking his T5 and swapped in a then pretty new to the world Tremec 3550. This meant that he could not longer use his PRO 5.0 shifter, and had to buy a Tremec specific one. When I bought my '89 he gave me his old shifter, which I couldn't wait to install. I removed the console plate, removed the lower boot, and found that the front bolts for the shifter were so far under the tunnel that I could not access them without dropping the trans crossmember. I didn't have a lift in those days and had recently swapped a clutch in the car and had no real desire to do the jackstand dance again, so I set the shifter on the shelf and ran it with a stock shifter. I'm using that Pro 5.0 in my '67 now many years later, and he asked me why I never ran it in the '89, and I told him about the bolt issue. He said that was funny because his was easily accessed through the hole. Having looked at a lot of them over the years he said it seemed that Ford had a guy on the line who just cut the shifter hole wherever he felt like it, and he'd seen them vary by a lot, even in shape over the years.
On a side note, never powershift a T5 with a stock shifter. I have a second gear hanging on my wall of shame that shows what happens when you do.
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When I did my T-5 conversion in my 65, I went w/ an aftermarket shifter that has a round base with screw stops. I used a Hurst inner boot like this one:
Unlike a stock boot, this boot has extra room to accommodate the screw stops. The inner boot keeps dirt out of the shifter itself, but doesn't prevent water/dirt/noise from entering the car. For that, I was able to retain the stock opening in my floor w/ only minor trimming, so I used an outer boot that screwed into the stock holes in the floor.
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Thanks for all the responses. I think I will go with Steve's method (sorta). I will use the stock seal and contour it to fit the transmission hump. I also will be using some RTV between the seal and the hump.
Thanks again, Heem
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The seal has a metal frame so no rtv should be needed.
Won't hurt though.
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