Muncie shifter rebuild
 

Going through my 4K file today looking at a lot of old stuff from Muscle Car Review and the one about how to rebuild your early Muncie shifters. I followed this to rebuild mine and still works fine to this day. Hope this can help someone.
Later,

PS. I found one on refinishing AL surfaces. Send it later. There was a ton of good stuff in those mags back in the 90’s n 2000’s. And then Mr. Internet screwed up everything!

Great share! those old Muscle Car Review guides were gold. Always handy to have a reliable Muncie rebuild reference

Flip those two pictures for me Rob. I’ll try get to get that other article out today i spoke about.

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Fun. I found it Best to Rebuild mine and put it on a shelf and install a Hurst.

That Detent is a bear to get back together

Muncie Shifters...
 

This is good info for folks who need to refresh a Muncie...these shifters were a pain even when the car was new. The mounting on the cross member is the killer....unlike Hurst which mounts on the tranny.

Another option is to sacrifice a Muncie handle by installing a Hurst end...and then using a Hurst shifter. The handle looks good inside the car and you eliminate the potential binding problems.

-wilma

Yes, My Trickery

I had a bunch of Muncie shifters.

When I rebuilt them, I would use the neutral gate spring.

Some people say they should not have a neutral gate spring but some of the original shifters had them.

In that article, I see the hole is there for the spring but they didn't install one.

The spring and the hat shaped retainer were hard to find.

^^
Correct, I found a source for Both as & If needed.

Jim

Jim, are you referring to the round rubber washer thing thats most times dry rotted and coming apart?

^^ No that is Impossible to find so I use a incorrect looking "functional replacement" item in my builds. When I source a used Shifter that Bushing is brittle-cracks, chipped and damaged beyond repairs not much NOS source for it so we have to improvise. Often I purchase 3-sp shifters as scrap to source parts also.

I believe the shifter came in Version One and Version two

Parts Manual Ill.
 

This is Helpful also:

I remember in the discussions on the neutral gate spring , that it is not shown in that drawing.

I felt that the shifter worked better with the neutral gate spring

Some people said the neutral gate spring should not be used

here is a photo of a rebuilt shifter with the neutral gate spring

The round rubber bushing thing that’s always dry rotted-cracked n fallen apart. On a shock absorber the two round black rubber bushings thats on top of an absorber. Hopefully you have enough left of the original piece to get some good measurements of it.
Put one of the shock absorber rubber bushings things in the freezer n let it freeze for several hours or overnight. When rubber freezes you can take a sharp knife- hack saw- band saw n cut it down to the size you want. You might have to refreeze it a few times to achieve what you want. I did this to my shifter 30 years ago and it still works fine. Gunmakers use this process on custom fitting a butt stock rubber to a Trap Shooters shoulder.
This little spring that people are talking about, get creative find one- make one that will work n drive on.
I used white lithium grease on mine when reassembling it.