Recently bought a beautiful billet shifter which ended up not fitting. Universal fit my ***.

Now I can’t get the OE shifter back in. I can partially insert it and shift from park to R to neutral, but that all done with the pin installed that holds the shifter in place. SOS

 

so to reaffirm - you can currently shift the column from Park thru neutral with the factory lever fully reinstalled but not into drive? or are you saying the lever won't go fully back in to where you can reinsert the pin?

Is that a factory tilt or non-tilt column? I'm assuming non-tilt because you have a non-tilt shift lever (the tilt lever is not as long at the end and squared off at the tip, no point - they're not interchangeable but you can easily grind the point off to where it will work on a tilt-column.

 

Your Chassis Service Manual shows you how to insert a shim into the shift bowl to depress the spring before you insert the shift lever.

 

Its not fully installed. I can get to neutral with the shifter partially seated. Can’t reinsert the pin. And yes, non tilt.

 

Thanks Joe I’ll take a look. I fumbled around with the assembly manual, got frustrated, and posted. I’ll check it out.

 

Hey Joe any bright ideas on what I can use for a shim? I’ve tried and Allen wrench and a jig saw blade with no luck.

 

I can partially insert the shift lever and cycle from P to N. But I cannot fully insert it where I can reinsert the pin.

 

how about a really thin long shank / small sized flat blade screwdriver - something along the lines of a jeweler's tool

 

For a long, thin, flat, strong piece of metal I use the metal strips out of wiper blade refills.

 

Guys I got it. Went to a salvage yard and bought various gauges of scrap metal. This sucker did the trick.