VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1946-1948 Shift Pattern 1946 3 speed Trans

I'm puzzled. What would cause my shift pattern to be reversed?
"R" should be up and away from the driver, and instead it's up and toward the driver.

Why would you think that if you pull the shift lever back that the vehicle should not back up? It is only logical for back on the lever to be reverse. Any other movement is not logical but, not all engineers and designers are logical or practical.

The normal three speed column shift pattern is up and back for reverse. Buick was one with a opposite (or backward) shift pattern.

On my car the reverse is up and towards the driver, or up and back as Chippy explains it.

On my 47 Fleetmaster "R" is towards driver, and up.

1st is Towards driver, and down.

2nd is away from driver, and up.

3rd is away from driver, and down.

This is the Normal shift pattern for the column shift.

OK, so I misstated my 1st. question. Problem is that it is not right, so how do I get it right? What could possibly be installed incorrectly that has "R" up and away?

Think of the shift pattern as the letter H with the left hand side being closest to the steering wheel. The - bar would be neutral, the lower left part being low gear or 1st, the upper left part being reverse, the upper right 2nd gear and the lower right high gear, aka 3rd. Hope that helps.

If the rods that connect to the transmission are not attached to the correct arm on the steering column then the shift pattern will be a mirror image. Switching the rods to the other lever arm should solve your problem. In actuality it might require switching the rods to arm on the transmission which will have the same result.

Thank you. I believe the link are not reversed. I suspect that the "lever on the trans" for the "smaller in diameter" link is backward. i.e. the link only pushes when activated so "lever on the trans" goes clockwise or counterclockwises depending on which way it is installed. I'm going to try changing that. Presently, it's pointing down and forward. The other way (if possible) would be up and forward. If this is not a solution than I would suspect something reversed in the trans itself. I need to know if anyone has come across this problem before and how did they deal with it.

I don't believe it is possible to install the gears inside the transmission to get it backwards. It has to be in the linkage.

I ran into a similar situation when a customer installed a floor shift conversion. the pattern was all screwed up because the levers on the trans were up side down

On my 48 without vaccum shift, the selector lever, (smaller diameter rod and trunion) along with the larger diameter rod and trunion are both positioned on the tranny levers, at the approx position of 20 minutes till the hour if you look at a clock. In other words, both pointing forward and slightly downwards. (the shift arms on tranny) Does this help??

Something else to look at, my 48 came to me with the selector pawl out of the slot where it was supposed to be. Created some loud banging sounds from tranny when I tried to first shift the car from the carrier company.

Jim.

While we're on this subject,when in 1st gear have a whineing sound and very high compression.The whine is also prevalent as I shift to 2nd then goes away..I thought at first it was that the tranny was tight after the rebuild,any ideas...
i also slip out of 2nd sometimes when coasting (adjustment???)
My rods are pretty far up and don't know if I can go much further down on them

1st gear does have some whine but not much more than 2nd. I would suspect that there is a cluster gear problem.

Clutch gear bearing,maybe???

Chef. Don't know if this will help, but on my 48 with it shifting properly, I have 1 3/8" of thread from top of jamb nut at trunion to top of rod at shifting rod and 1 1/16" of thread from top of jamb nut at trunion to top of rod at the selector lever. Doesn't leave much adjustment left to bring rods up if needed.

I may be wrong on this, but always figured on my 49 chevy if I wound it out fairly tight in either low or second and than dropped my foot off gas and the tranny would jump out of gear under de-acceloration, the tranny was bad internally.

Jim.

Solved the problem! Smaller shift lever on the trans was on backward (pointing forward and up, instead of forward and down). I guess one can not assume that anything is right just because that's the way the previous owner had it. Thank for all the help and suggestions.

Glad to read it is solved.