Shifty Issues & Questions

[Hartley]

Ok, So I thought I knew the answers on part of this question
but I am still curious just from the infomational angle.

This is basically for the archive so when someone ask's it will be there!

In a Bus, When you decide to install a bigger transmission ( Manual )
which has more than 4 speeds, Such as a 9 speed or 10 speed or more.

What are the answers to setting up the shifting mechanism?

The reason I ask is that if you have an older coach with 2 shift rods from
the front to the back, How do you adapt the 2 rod system for more than
the H-Pattern?

I ran into this with a GM coach. The front shift tower was divided with 2 sliders
that only allowed for an H-pattern and reverse was through a solenoid linked
to the 2-nd gear slider/rod.

Having looked into a new single cable type shifter and tower and a special top
selector for the transmission I could find that they existed but nobody had them,
Or if they did they weren't really meant for a 35 foot cable run. Most cost more
than the transmission and all were only available as OEM and in Europe only.

One scenario that I played with and should have worked was to change the way
the shift tower selected gears. One slider pushed and pulled a single rod. The
other operated a side to side cam that pushed and pulled the second rod.

On the transmission I had a top selector that went back and forth only and required
a second rod to move the shift-shaft in and out to select ranges. In Theory and on
paper it looked like it would work. Now this hairbrained idea was taken from a cab-over road tractor setup which used the single fwd-back & slide shaft. With some fidgeting I did manage to get that built and to work. I dropped that project due to other problems with the transmission setup.

For the record, What are your thoughts along this idea???

Dave....

[RJ]

Dr Dave -

Simplest solution?  Install an automatic.   

*

*

*

Sorry, Dave, couldn't resist. . .

[Hartley]

Yeah... But.... At the time that wasn't an option..

BTW I did run across some of the pictures of that contraption that I made..

If anyone want's to see a rube goldberg deal...

Dave...

[Dallas]

Dave,
For what it's worth, IH made a dual cable operated shift tower for the Transtar II. If you can find one of those at a junkyard, you can replace the cables with longer Morse cables and have it make a U-turn at the back so that the shift pattern is correct for the application.

It seems to me, you could even convert the rod style tower to a cable type pretty easily, but I'm not sure about that.

Good luck!

Dallas

[TomC]

Fuller makes the X box to reverse the shift pattern for rear engines.  You'll have to change the shifter from a two rod push pull, to a X-Y shifter-meaning one cable for fore and aft, and the other for side to side.  My Kenworth cabover had that kind of shifter.  To my knowledge, most of the cabover trucks in the end had the X-Y cable shifter-and that includes, Freightliner, Kenworth, International, and Peterbilt.  Not hard to find one of these in a junk yard.  Just get the heaviest duty shift cables, and it should work all right.  It will take a bit of arm muscle to shift all that cable, but making the shift rod longer will make for lighter feel.  Good Luck, TomC

[HB of CJ]

This might help.  My old '74 Crown Supercoach had a midships pancake Cummins Small Cam engine and the RTO910 10 speed Roadranger.  The shifter was just one big rod that ran from the cab shifter all the way over the engine and stopped at the top of the tranny.

That long rod had several grease zerts.  boogiethecat brought them to my attention when I first got the bus as the shifter was not what I remembered from years ago.  It was hard to physicaly shift the tranny.  Thirty minutes with a grease gun changed everything.

In spite of the one long shifter rod (probably 20 feet) it took only about 3 to 5 pounds of effort and about 1 inch to shift the Roadranger.  More like shifting a dirt bike.  Very easy.  Anyway, the Crown employed only one shift rod and in spite of being long, it worked just great.  HB of CJ