TheAMCForum.com Homepage
Forum Home Forum Home > The Garage > Transmission & Drivetrain
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed - Ratchet Shifters
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Events   Register Register  Login Login

Click for TheAMCForum Rules / Click for PDF version of Forum Rules
Your donations help keep this valuable resource free and growing. Thank you.

Ratchet Shifters

 Post Reply Post Reply Page  <12
Author
Message
purple72Gremlin View Drop Down
AMC Addicted
AMC Addicted
Avatar
Charter Member

Joined: Jul/01/2007
Location: Illinois
Status: Offline
Points: 16591
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote purple72Gremlin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May/16/2018 at 1:05pm
Originally posted by Ken_Parkman Ken_Parkman wrote:

Yeah it was a huge pain in the h***.

The guy had some ratchet shifter installed by a generic bolt together mechanic and it did not work. The brackets do not fit and the detent spacing is not right, so it was a dogs breakfast. He kept asking me to fix it and I kept saying no, use a stock shifter, and he finally wore me down. I kept saying you cannot pay someone to re-engineer something not designed to fit as the hours and cost is crazy. Things like that you have to do yourself, or be filthy rich.

So I had to re-route the cable, fabricate a new cable bracket, pull the tranny apart (valve body had to come out), calculate a new lever radius, make a new lever, put it back together, then do it all over again cause it was just not quite right first try.

In the end it seemed to work well and I hope it still does. He has not been back since I think the cost of that really peed him off. It took a lot of hours.
I remember. And In general I dont like ratchet shifters.
Back to Top
akimmet View Drop Down
AMC Nut
AMC Nut
Avatar

Joined: Aug/02/2012
Location: Republic OH
Status: Offline
Points: 428
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote akimmet Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May/17/2018 at 9:50am
Ratchet shifters are a pain to setup on transmissions they were made for, let alone one that has different shift spacing.
Back to Top
THE MENACE View Drop Down
AMC Addicted
AMC Addicted
Avatar

Joined: Nov/04/2008
Location: So. California
Status: Online
Points: 4428
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote THE MENACE Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May/17/2018 at 11:06am
I had the Mega shifter in my J10 race truck and it worked great both on the street and off road. Never a worry of popping out of gear for sure!


I can see how un-equal spacing of the shift detents on the BW could cause problems though.
Former Owner of:
The Craig Breedlove "AERO AMX"

Still Owner:
SS/AMX #9 replica (THE BIG MENACE)
70 AMX 416, EFI, Nash 5 speed   
70 Javelin 401, 727 (Wife's)
72 Gremlin Autocross Project.
Back to Top
billd View Drop Down
Moderator Group
Moderator Group

Forum Administrator

Joined: Jun/27/2007
Location: Iowa
Status: Offline
Points: 30894
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote billd Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May/17/2018 at 12:07pm
LEt one get out of adjustment or have a bit of slop - and yes, not only pop out of gear but totall miss. And sometimes you had to stop and start over, put it in P and count, or go to what you thought was correct and double-check.
Any slop and all bets are off. Any mis-adjustment, all bets are off - lever incorrect (they tell you to throw your lever away and use their lever) and all bets are off. 
Been there - had one for two years and was happy to get rid of it.
With a proper factory shifter that is ADJUSTED and not sloppy you won't "pop out of gear" either. For one thing the detent in the MOPAR transmissions is quite positive, but the factory shifter has a gate mechanism and holds things steady. 
NO regrets removing my ratchet shifter. 
If it was a pure strip car I may feel different but then also on an unmodified or only slightly modified transmission - I ask "why bother"?

Back to Top
purple72Gremlin View Drop Down
AMC Addicted
AMC Addicted
Avatar
Charter Member

Joined: Jul/01/2007
Location: Illinois
Status: Offline
Points: 16591
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote purple72Gremlin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: May/17/2018 at 8:33pm
Originally posted by billd billd wrote:

LEt one get out of adjustment or have a bit of slop - and yes, not only pop out of gear but totall miss. And sometimes you had to stop and start over, put it in P and count, or go to what you thought was correct and double-check.
Any slop and all bets are off. Any mis-adjustment, all bets are off - lever incorrect (they tell you to throw your lever away and use their lever) and all bets are off. 
Been there - had one for two years and was happy to get rid of it.
With a proper factory shifter that is ADJUSTED and not sloppy you won't "pop out of gear" either. For one thing the detent in the MOPAR transmissions is quite positive, but the factory shifter has a gate mechanism and holds things steady. 
NO regrets removing my ratchet shifter. 
If it was a pure strip car I may feel different but then also on an unmodified or only slightly modified transmission - I ask "why bother"?

pretty much how I feel. Only reason my drag car has a shifter in it is because it was a 6 cylinder 4 spd car..now V8-727.
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  <12
  Share Topic   

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Forum Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 12.03
Copyright ©2001-2019 Web Wiz Ltd.

This page was generated in 0.156 seconds.
All content of this site Copyright © 2018 TheAMCForum unless otherwise noted, all rights reserved.
PROBLEMS LOGGING IN or REGISTERING:
If you have problems logging in or registering, then please contact a Moderator or