Bent shifter bar: Been there?

[guards73/2.0]

I bent my shifter bar on my 73 2.0 when I pulled the motor last July and knew nothing about the car. I experienced an aluminum-to-alloy corrosion bond ( these can be tough )
and got frustrated and cold-chiseled through the shift coupler. So here I am a year later,
I've got the motor and trans back in, and the shift coupler doesn't line up with the
shifter bar that comes throuh the firewall.
It seems like the alignment is about 5 degrees off. Problem is, I don't know what's
bent: the shift rod that stayed in the car or the shift rod that goes back to the transmission ( the one that is readily removeable), and I wonder if I just went the
easy route and bent the end of the removeable shaft to line up with the one that
comes out of the firewall so that I could just assemble it, would that create a weird shifting problem or aren't these mechanisms
that delicate?

[Jim Smolka]

IMHO, the bars are not that difficult to work with.

Years ago, I bought a '71 that had a sideshifter converion by the PO. The bar was half '71 and half '73. It worked fine.

On my '75, I had to cut and then weld the bar so that it would not touch the 3.2 motor.

Both car shift fine.

[Roland Kunz]

Hello

The shifter coupler shoukd have enough felibilty to make it work.

If the inner linkage is bend your bushing in the firewall will wear faster.

Doing it right would take some time as you have to restraighten the inner rod previous the outher rod. Mostly both are bend.

If you can´t remove the coupler then just pinch out the pin in the fork.

Grüsse

[JP Noonan]

Best bet would be to buy a replacement set-up, not much, I've seen "tail to side shift" kits for $100.

Next I agree you could bend things and the U-joint will accept the slack, but there is a spot weld on the shifter that breaks even without being bent. So make sure not to put strees on it.