photo by Simon White
What caught my attention to this familiar sight was the piece of paper taped to the left side of the dash. It’s a rather unusual shift pattern for Ford, or any American pickup.
Here’s the detail:
Can you explain it? A three speed with reversed pattern? Hmm…
Somebody reassembled the shift linkage upside down? Had that happen on a motorway once, it had been in parts for about two years.
I agree, usually the arms on the transmission side plate get flipped from straight up to straight down (or vice versa).
A pretty simple fix, but you have to crawl back under, disassemble, and reassemble….
That’s it. You have to flip the levers on the shift shafts over when converting from a column shift to a floor shift on some manual transmissions. Sometimes there isn’t enough room between the transmission and the floor for clearance and you are stuck with the backwards pattern. Had that problem on an early Falcon once. I think this might be a Ford issue
The floor shift conversion on my ’66 F100 is correct, so it’s doable. That’s why I posted it, because it’s like my truck, except for the pattern.
Right, I would think there should be plenty of room in a truck between the transmission and cab floor to orientate the levers the right way for a floor shift conversion. Never did the conversion on a Ford truck, but did a ’64 Chevy C20 with no issues. Don’t know what the story is with the truck you photographed.
My thought was someone changed out the transmission for a floor shift, found the issue and said…yuh know I’ll just shift it backwards.
Er, motorcycle. Damn spellcheck.
Right the first time. It’s why they drive on the left side of the road.
Mechanic’s double dyslexia may have flared up, because it’s not only the usual “flipped” shift levers but the rod locations are reversed too. Resulting in a complete mirror of the intended pattern.
Some big truck transmissions had the odd option of high gear being located at a forward position, thus parking the stick toward the dash once up to high gear.
It was sort of humbling to curse a strange “slow geared” truck and a few hours later realize that there’s another cog. lol
That’s the exact pattern that resulted when a friend’s father took his early 1970 Falcon to a mechanic to replace a balky 3 speed column shifter with a floor shifter. I always wondered if the guy put in the wrong kit or if it was just a matter of not putting the parts together properly. I am gathering from the comments that it was the second one.
I wouldn’t be in hurry to let him or her borrow my stick shift car. Old shifting habits die hard.
I had the same thing in a 1966 Dodge Dart that was converted from column shift to floor shift I bought as my first car in 1975
10 or so years after buying and selling the car, I met a guy at the local community college and was telling him about the car, including the deer hide dash pad and he started to laugh. Seems he was the owner of the car at one point and installed the deer hide (he worked in a leather mill and got the skin for nothing), swapped the shifter and decided the odd shift patter made a good anti-theft device.
Great story! Too bad he didn’t replace the shift lever with an antler.
I love the comment about how to make the car theft-proof by changing the shift pattern.
The column mount was still there, minus the lever. Dad and I decided it was better to use the column shifter as I was still a new driver. We found another lever and installed it and removed the floor mount setup.
We found, however, that the column mount shifter wasn’t very smooth. It would bind in the neutral position when going from 1st to 2nd or Reverse to 1st unless you pushed down on the steering wheel and pulled hard on the lever. The blade on the linkage would get bound and not go anywhere. You’d have to pull over to the side of the road, get the big honkin’ screw driver from under the driver’s seat, open the hood, and use the screw driver to push the blade back on the linkage.
After discovering that, I would park the car by nosing it up near something solid, and leave it in 1st.
Worked great as anti-theft setup since only a couple people knew how to get it to shift from 1st to reverse.
The guy who did the original conversion has become my best friend over the years and we still talk about that car – just mentioned it last night, in fact.
We discussing how much fun it would be to put that new big Ford crate motor in it.
That probably explains why he put a floor shift in it in the first place. 🙂
That big new Ford crate motor in the Dart?
Could have been, but he was and still is known to change things just because he wants to.
I learned to drive a stick on a 1961 Mercedes 180 with a four on the column.
1 3
2 4
Many years later I acquired a 1957 3-cylinder DKW with a four on the column.
2 4
1 3
Imagine the fun of relearning a half-backwards column-shift. A three cylinder just doesn’t want to take off in second!
Happy Motoring, Mark
Looking at the shift diagram, I was reminded of an old Ford shifter trick my neighbor told me about.
I had just purchased a ’40 Ford project car, the first year of the column shifter.
It seems the shift tube (which was mounted on top of the steering column) could be rotated so the lever would be on the left hand side.
This gave you the ability to slap the shifter down into 2nd gear and have a speedier shift.
When I reassembled the column after painting I tried it out. It did work, but the novelty quickly wore off.
Ford used this design on their full size cars into the early sixties.
I once had a Plymouth Duster that had been converted from a column shift to a floor shift. The shift pattern was
R3
12
It would often jam going from first to second so I’d high Rev first and throw it up into third. It was bought dirt cheap and I got 6 months out of it.
For a while I had three motorcycles: the new Triumph had a normal left-foot shift with five speeds but the old Triumph had a right-foot shift, also with five speeds. The Royal Enfield had a right-foot shift with four speeds, but the pattern was reversed with first up and second through fourth down. The Enfield also had an additional pedal that would put you in neutral without having to downshift through all the gears. Not confusing at all.
I had similar problems with motorcycles too. First bike was a 70 Kawasaki 500 triple. Left foot shifting, neutral was all the way down not between 1st and 2nd as the later models were. Then I bought a 73 Moto Guzzi V7 Sport. Shifting is now on the opposite side and also the opposite direction. That of course also means the rear brake is on opposite side. So after awhile I sold the Kawasaki, muscle memory tends to favor the most ridden bike. Then I purchased a 80 Super Glide and I parked the Guzzi because of course the Harley has the shifting on the opposite side in the opposite direction.
There were some odd shift patterns on the heavy trucks too. For a time single range six and seven speed transmission were popular, mainly because of 55 mph speed limits. It was cheaper to buy than a multi range trans and was generally cheaper to operate. When they offered overdrive in the single range gear boxes the last two gears were swapped so you went to the upper right hole for the top gear instead of the lower right hole. This made for an awkward U shift in the pattern. Oddly enough if you gave the dealer a little more cash you could get this very same transmission with a normal shift pattern. Spicer also had six and seven speed twin countershaft transmissions and they also had the awkward U in the shift patterns on some transmissions.
The main problem with the multi range transmissions was operator abuse or lack of training. The common Road Ranger trans would run forever if it was properly shifted but many operators did not know or did care to select the range correctly. These gear boxes did not have synchronizers for the gears but the range gear set is synchronized and that syncro did not like to be abused.
The other
Wow, Road Ranger…. that makes me feel like about 200 years old… yeah thanks for that…..
There is some justification for a backward pattern. Dodge began with this pattern in 1914 because it puts the floor lever out of the way in 3rd, which is where you spend most of the time. The standard pattern puts the lever close to your knees most of the time.
Dad obliged a friend by picking up her trans-shipped VW at the dock. He’d never driven an imported car as far as I know, and certainly didn’t know about the VW’s push-down-to-gain-reverse transmission. After struggling for a while and failing to find reverse, he got out and pushed the car out of its parking spot, and putted away . . .
That is one of our secret joys is having a newby move a old VW around the lot..we all watch. Half of them will put it in neutral and push it backwards, good times. Damn them black forest elves.
A three on the tree with or without a diagram is just as much fun, especially when you try to get the key out of a Ford.
My dad had a ’79 Firebird, V6 with a 3-speed and he’s told the story about mistakenly putting the linkage in wrong and it had a reversed shift pattern. He drove it that way for a while before he had time to fix it.
Get rid of the diagram and you have the ultimate anti-theft device.
As I recall my 64 Peugoet had a 5 on the tree. Long gone but I still have the hood ornament. Count 1-5 last one down was reverse.
No 5 speed. But the early 404s, including the ’64, had a somewhat unusual shift pattern. R up, straight down for 1st, then up and forwards for 2nd, then straight down for 3rd, then up and forward for 4th.
All the Peugeot RWD cars had that until they switched to the newer BA7 transmission in 1967, IIRC. Then they had the typical 4 speed pattern.
Not in RHD, where that change was truly reversed, or mirrored, as if it had travelled around the outside of the wheel as it moved over. Thus, first was forward and down, reverse straight up above that (with no lockout). Second was towards the driver – but not too far, mind – and up, third was straight down again, and fourth was fully back towards the driver and up. Oh, and in all positions on the “up” side, the stick flopped unhelpfully back to look like permanent neutral, so no point trying to know which gear by looking! It was all as bizarre as it sounds, and slow with it.
Curiously, the older DS’s in RHD were the same, and the Renault R4 and 2CV had the same pattern, though for them, this was also for LHD ofcourse, and looks/acts more sensibly in its more “normal” position. Insofar as a bent rod sticking out the middle of the dash is normal, of course.
When the later 404 box came in RHD, it was a massively better box, and the change a true delight – even if the change was still reverse to all other 4-column shifts. First, forward and up, second straight down, third up towards driver, fourth, straight down.
It’s been a while. I had a 64 404. Sure seemed that it had a 5 speed. I’ll
allow that time may have misted my memory. I remember trying for a downshift on a large hill and got something other than 3rd that sure felt like 5th. You would certainly have more Pug experience. I do have the hood ornament, I don’t know why. I do know it had an AM FM and (was it a Police band radio?) which I found very odd.
It was a very loaded car (and very worn out).
I had the same experience of driving a 1965 Tatra 603 a long time ago. My friend had emphasised the reversed shifting pattern many times before I was allowed to drive. He also watched like a hawk and pounced at me if I goofed. Thankfully, it went well for me and to his relief.
I found this photo of shifting diagram years later.
“flexolite” …interesting.
In about 1964 I was getting driving instructions for a summer camp coworker’s early 50s Chevy. He had installed a floor shift, and the pattern was the same as the second photo.
IIRC, some Simcas had a layout not dissimilar to this, though with a four speed floor shift. Something like this
3 1
4 2 R
Strangely, maybe, but in driving many, many LHD hire cars in Europe, I’ve never tried to change gear with a window winder though