t_huth21

Hello all. I have a '77 442. I believe this car came with a TH350 transmission. It was swapped to a TH400 sometime before I bought the car. This car is a floor shift. Excuse me in advance for possible ignorance in terminology here. Is there a difference in the detent plate for a th350 shifter vs a th400 shifter? The shifter has never had a "stop" since I've owned it. In other words I can run the shifter from park to 1st and back to park again without having to pull up on the lever. It has never been a big deal but I want to fix it now. I tore into the console and the "stop" is not there. From pictures I've looked up it looks like it is a threaded dowel rod that is supposed to screw into the shifter arm and it rides in the detent plate. My issue is that just eyeballing it, it doesn't look like the spot in the in the shifter arm lines up with any of the detents in the plate. I'm wondering if it was removed for this reason when the swap was made. Any help/advice/guidance would be much appreciated.

natedrag

The shifter is the same between the th350 and th400. The cable brackets on the trans, however, are not, due to the different trans pan bolt pattern. ( Cable is the same.) Sounds like maybe when the trans was swapped they didn't have the right brackets and just bolted it as best they could on the pan and modified the shifter. You can get the right brackets.

t_huth21

Thanks for the reply. I will look into the brackets. Don't mind me but I do not know a whole lot about auto trannys. So are you suggesting that this is almost a cable length issue? I get that they are the same cable but because it may be the wrong bracket so it's mounting location is wrong which is making the shift lever stop in the wrong positions in relation to the detent plate?

natedrag

Exactly.

t_huth21

Thanks so much. I never even gave that a thought. But it makes total sense. When I saw the "stop" missing out of the shift lever I just figured it got left out at some point. And I can't find a stop anywhere so I was in there last night measuring to make one and realized "hey, this doesn't line up." I guess someone just half assed it. Imagine that. Instead of doing it right they just said well just take the stop out lol. Thanks again. Much appreciated.