Not only did they say they could not do it because the paint was no longer available, but when I went to pick up the car about 3 weeks later, I found the car to be half destroyed! I made a huge mistake in taking my car to a paint and body shop to have the black vinyl top painted to a parchment off white color. It's actually in park now and feels like it will stay there.I have a major issue with my 1967 Thunderbird (yes, not a Lincoln, but I am hoping that Lincoln and/or the Mark III had the same or similar steering columns). Now, once you get that spring back on, you're home-free with a nice tight shifter. Then, using a thumb on each nut, push them outward until the whole assembly snaps back into place and the square bolt heads are engaged in the slots shown at right. This thing was a time-bomb.ĭuring reassembly, put the retaining bolts in the back, then in the front, thread the nuts on a couple turns. The edge has chamfered on the shift lever. Driving the pin back in is also a challenge, but goes in with some powerful but careful hammering with a centerpunch. Just reverse the process when installing the new shifter. To remove the shifter, rotate it 90 degrees down to free it from the rear pressure pin. It took a lot of force to get it going, but once it started moving it slid out without too much force. The spring and nut was frustrating enough, now this pin retaining the shift lever has to come out without destroying anything, I moved the shifter to low and drove it out with a large nailset. This was addressed in the Squarebird article, but I'll discuss it again as it proves tricky during installation Notice one of the black retaining bolts in the steering column. Window cleaner would also safely clean it.įinally, the detent plate and shift lever are in sight. It's easy to smudge up, but I cleaned it with a little denatured alcohol before reinstalling it. Pull the black background piece out from the front and set the light aside. Remove the three screws holding the shift indicator light and black background piece in place. Remove the cover panel with a tape covered screwdriver. I had a pair of snap-ring pliers, but is still proved challenging to remove. The next difference I found was this snap ring on the steering shaft. Don't remove it yet though, and actually leave the one at 10 o'clock in for now because there was another surprise. Reassembly was next to impossible for me, however after loosing and re-finding the parts multiple times, I finally got it back together. This will be the most confounding part of the whole procedure. Slide the nut off very carefully, keeping a finger on the post to prevent the spring from flying into oblivion. The canceller is retained by a horseshoe nut and spring on a small nylon shaft. This design is slightly different than the Squarebird's. While pushing on it a bit to give it slack, I gently pulled the wire until I had enough slack to work. After pondering for awhile, I looked for the blue/yellow stripe wire at the base of the steering column. A small crescent wrench will probably also work if you don’t have an ignition wrench. I used a 3/16" ignition wrench to remove the turn signal lever to avoid damaging it. You'll have a lot of small stuff to keep track of. Pull the horn contact out and the two drive indicator plate screws and set them aside with all your other parts. The steering wheel comes off with minimal effort. The bolts to use for the puller are 5/16"-24. Remove the nut with a 15/16" socket and 6" extension. Below you can see my shifter is ready to jump into reverse and the car won't start unless I press up on the shifter. The Squarebird article also doesn't mention any snafus that you might run into, of which I ran into several. In my case, the shift lever was the cause of my problem. Save yourself a lot of trouble and replace them both at the same time. This procedure includes replacing the shift lever and detent. However, as I proceeded to do this, I noticed a few differences between the 58 to 60 and the 61 to 63. This topic was covered for Squarebirds at this link. Replacing the 1961 to 1963 Shift Detent and Shift Lever Replacing 61 to 63 Thunderbird Shift Detent and Lever
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