Necessity is a mother...or something like that. Shifter fix

[blacksheep-1]

So, on my last outing I made a shift into " no forward gear"...again. I actually went from 4th to 3rd, with my cat like reflexes, I got the clutch right back in but left the disc material on the front straight. God bless the guys that invented the mod motor, because that 185K mile lump lived through the downshift from hell.
A little background, I had done something like this several months ago, and it was difficult to get into reverse, but I just tossed it up to a bent shift fork. At Roebling it had gotten progressively worse, but parking it was not in the spirit of Superbeater. Going down the front straight for several laps prior it had " crunched" going through the 5th gate, I presume the internals were clashing with reverse.
( 5 speed), so I simply figured out I could make up for it with superior driving ability. For this reason I was trying to skirt the 5th gate and I didn't quite make it into 5th. I did make it precisely into 3rd at about 7K rpm, however.
So during the subsequent rebuilding process, I installed a new Exedy hyper twin disc clutch. As most of you know, I like single disc clutches, but Dean talked me into this, so....
While going through the process, I discovered this.




This is part of the shifting mechanism that goes from the MGW shifter to the transmission shift rail, it is one of the Ford parts that is retained. When I went to remove it, the stud holding the bushing literally fell off into my hands...hmm, could've been the culprit that actually started the cascade of destruction. This is a factory shifter, but this is the part. ( if you look closely you can see where some coconut tack welded the nut on the stud, preventing me from using this, who ever you are, I know you're out there, buddy).

 

[blacksheep-1]

Since the part has to be purchased with the entire shifter mechanism, and it's unobtainable, anyway, I had to fix this myself.
Now keep in mind this is not @Fabman level of repair, this is some cracker in his garage with a Craftsman drill press level of repair, so here we go.


I sawed off what was left of the stud, chucked it into the drill press, pilot drilled it with the sharpest small bit I thought was appropriate. Being a member of the fraternal order of eagles allows me to eyeball anything, so I drilled it in the center of the stud...sort of, since the stud was actually part of the larger piece it was difficult to actually locate CENTER, and my laser like measurements sort of let me down, but I reconciled it buy reasoning it would just take a bigger washer...send it.
The drill was a tap drill for 6mm bolt, I located the metric equivalent of a grade 8
( yeah, right, like that exists) drilled it and tapped it.



I used the press to start the tap to make sure it was straight, at no point did I turn it on for this, it was simply to start it, and finished by hand.

 

[blacksheep-1]

At this point I ran the bolt into the abyss, Loctite stud n bearing mount seemed appropriate, and it was torqued to the " feels about right" spec.
The reason for the inverted lock nut is for 2 reasons, 1 is to make sure I leave enough room for the nut and washer, reason 2 is so that after the cut I can chase the threads when the nut is removed.





And...done.