Quote:
Originally Posted by mikentosh
It was especially fun as this occurred as I was upshifting while passing a bunch of semis at about 90mph. I go to grab 6th gear and the whole shifter just comes off in my hand after the shift gate goes into neutral, so we were without any connection to the drive wheels at that point. Hilariously I turn to my buddy in the passenger seat (who was asleep up to that point) and start quoting Days of Thunder..."Just give me high gear!". He actually rams his hand down into the trans tunnel and somehow manages to push the shift linkage into 4th. I clutch out and we promptly exit the highway at the next exit. This all happened within about 20 seconds hahaha.
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Wow, that is not the way you want to wake up from a nice nap. Impressive he was able to reach in there and find a lower gear. I once woke up in the back seat of a crew cab to the driver screaming like a little girl right before we hit a cow so hard it launched off a cliff in Baja. We almost followed it in the truck. I have to be really, really tired to sleep in a car now.
Anyway, your incident made me curious enough to go look at my shifter. Mine is designed like your fix, with the bolts coming up from the bottom which gives plenty of thread engagement. I'll still check and loctite before assembly. The base plate on my shifter is obviously thicker than the one you show, which allows for the screws to be countersunk and come up in to the tower. Curious why they made the plate so thin on yours that it only allowed for a few threads. The only drawback I can see to making the plate thicker is loss of floor clearance.
Thanks for sharing your problem, certainly helps to know where the potential weaknesses are.