guitarman376

For those that may have questions about shims in the future, the shims on the hurst website work with all mustang competition plus shifters. I was emailed by their tech expert telling me so. What I have to figure out now is how to get the plastic lever spacers for less than $35/pair and figure out why one of my competition shifters is different from the other in this regard...pictures will be up in due time...

Starfury

Hmmm...I'd be interested in those pics. I don't recall any plastic spacers in my shifter.

guitarman376

It looks like I purchased one 'old style' shifter and one from a later date. I assumed neither was a factory Hurst because they both have shift stop bolts. These are the spacers one of my shifters has. Why they are charging $35/pair I don't know. I will post pics of my actual shifters at a later date to show the differences.

https://www.hurstshiftersonline.com/...&idcategory=53

Starfury

Ohhh, do those go in between the handle and the shifter? If so, mine definitely doesn't have those.

I bet they dampen vibration at least a little, though. My shifter doesn't rattle, but it does transmit vibration into the cabin pretty well.

guitarman376

Yea they do on the frontward side and the back side. I haven't disassembled the other one yet, but from the looks of it there are none in that one. I wonder why they had the design change...I only need one spacer and hurst is the only place I can find them for $35/pair...I will literally shove a fitting plastic doohickey from the hardware store before paying that price...if anyone has an extra lying around hint hint...

guitarman376

Thread revival time. Just wanted to say I finished rebuilding the shifter and I wanted to mention a few things to people rebuilding Hurst shifters for the first time. I don't know about the shifters made after the design was changed a bit (see post above), but I was able to rebuild my hurst shifter successfully.

One thing I highly recommend is taking an excessive amount of pictures! I can't say how helpful this was to me, going into this mini project with no prior hurst experience. For replacement shims, the ones on hursts website will work will all comp shifters.

The most difficult part of rebuilding everything is re-inserting the small stiff spring and washer in the lever assembly, and spreading the case adequately to slide the entire assembly into the case. For the spring and washer I found that the best way was to use a long big screwdriver to depress the spring just enough to slide the washer under it and then lock it in place with the dogbone thingy (for reverse engagement I believe).

During installation of the lever and shim assembly into the case,I bent my case a little while spreading it, and had to straighten it back out but it came out fine/great. Not sure if there is some special trick here but I got it done after messing with it awhile.

In another post I mention I rebuilt an original 4 speed Ford shifter with working reverse lockout. For someone not trying to be competitive/racey with their car this shifter worked pretty dang well after I tightened it up a bit (see my post for details). The only drawbacks being a longer throw and no shift stops. With the hurst setup the shifter throws are definitely shorter and the handle is longer which is nice. I found adjusting the Ford shifter to be really easy, and found the hurst to be much more sensitive to adjustment. Very happy overall.
I am slowly collecting all the parts to convert my car to the toploader (fmx right now) but I will be doing something a little different with my clutch setup and I will post when that aspect of the project starts. Building my car to be thrashed AND reliable...hence the toploader

Starfury

Nice! Can you post pics?

guitarman376

The second two are showing where the plastic spacers live. After playing around with the shifters various adjustments I realized that the little bar fastened with the lock nut that goes across the front of the lever is to adjust for vibration while driving. After adjusting and readjusting the linkage, the lever wouldn't pop all the way over right like it is supposed to. I had that bar fastened too tightly, which then puts tension on the shift lever preventing the spring from pushing it to the right all the way. Loosening that lock nut freed up the side to side movement. It also has a small effect on how 'tight' the shifter feels forward and back. I just adjusted mine til it felt right.

Starfury

Awesome!

Make sure you pick up a lower shift boot to keep all of that covered and away from road grit/grime.

guitarman376

I definitely will! The list of small parts for the toploader swap is getting sooo long. I'm one of those people that tries to imagine every aspect of a project in my head before placing huge orders...my apartment looks like a small parts warehouse already!