pretty damn cool in my opinion!! once you get it mated to the stock center console it'll look bad *** too! great job

 

Wow, I can see the idea behind that, but isn't it TOO tall?
I've installed a B&M ratchet shifter in my console, but it only need like a 3.5" bracket made to space it up... How far below the trans tunnel does the T56 sit?

Interested to see how this works for you.

 

This is what I'm trying to find out now. I'm basing the height from another member who built a shift lever and it ended up being 16" long, not including the shift ****. Mine measures about 17" from where his shift lever would normally mount to the top of the leather shift ****. I'm just hoping the very top shifter plate on mine will sit below the center console enough to be hidden by the shift boot.

Does anyone know how far below the floor the T56 sits?

Mike

 

Cant wait to see how this all works out. I will be doing mine here shortly and have yet to buy my shifter set up.

 

That thing would make Rube Goldberg proud. On the serious side, as long as you have the necessary rigidity and it works for you then go forth and bang some gears!

I'm chasing some rattles down inside my shifter from it's worn out plastic bushings so I'm planning on pulling mine apart soon...when I do I'll collect some measurements of my setup and post them here.

 

That would be awesome man!

Mike

 

I just pulled the top of the console apart (please pardon the dirty):



...and got some measurements...I had to measure from the top of round part of the transmission case that the shifter rod goes through...I used Mikey's picture as a reference here, I measured from the top of the spot circled red:



Measuring from there...to the bottom of the front edge of the console it's 10.5":



From the top of that edge to the top of my shifter ball, it's 7.5" and I'm running a shifter ball that's 2" in diameter...without the shifter ball on there it's 7 1/8" from the top front edge of the console to the top of the threaded shifter stick...make way for my quick sketch:

 

Seems to me you could do same thing by just raising the pivot point of one shifter by doing a little cut and weld job lengthening the lower half of the shifter shaft. Then milling out a block of aluminum that would raise the mounting point of the shifter the same amount you lengthened the shaft.

 

This is exactly what I plan on doing to my t56.i have the front shifter and am going to take the shifter apart get measurements and model everything. Then make necessary changes in the model and make the final on a CNC. If there is interest and depending on how the first one goes. I could make more and do something similar with the stock rear shifter. This is months away from happening though as I am swamped at the moment.

 

I did a proof of concept around this exact idea..Mikey's just using a different approach and if it works well then more power to him.

Speaking of which, how is it going with that swap Mikey? If you need some encouragement then here's a video of me rowing from 3rd through 5th and landing in 6th in my T56 Tahoe: