DionR
Well-Known Member
A bunch of years ago (like 15 or more), I really wanted a pistol grip shifter in my Duster, but couldn’t afford the $600 price tag at the time. Plus, I didn’t want to spend that for something I thought was going to be too long and need to be modified. To clarify, my Brother had done a B-Body shifter in an A-Body and he needed a pie cut to bring the shifter back from the dash. I know they work, seen them in cars recently, but that was the info I was working from at that time.
So, I figured I would design my own and get it cut on the plasma cutter at work. Started with a drawing of an E-Body shifter and moved the handle around and finally ended up with the grip being about in the same spot as the original shifter ball. But by the time I had it cut, I had traded the Duster to a buddy and didn’t have a place for it anymore, so I gave the handle to my friend with the Duster.
He bolted it in after some work to add some reproduction grips and found that because it was a flat handle (like an E-Body shifter), it put the grips right against your leg and didn’t work well, so he pulled it out and set it aside. Then, in like 2008 or something, I got the car back which included the custom handle and then bought the grips from him later. At some point I built a couple of cardboard mockups to see where and how much to bend the handle to make it workable, then I put the project aside, lost the mockup I had settled on and made no progress on it.
But recently, Brewers released their boot for an A-Body with a rectangular hole for a pistol grip shifter which got me thinking about it again, so I dug it out and finished a couple of things on it including the bends and bolted it in the car. Thanks to Kevin and my Dad for working the torches to get this thing bent.
Here's some more pictures:
Ignore the boot, I have the correct one now even if I haven't swapped it out yet.
BTW, all the pictures are in first gear so that's far as I have to stretch. Didn't do any in 2nd/4th.
Learned a couple of things.
One, next time I won't bend the handle with two different angles. This added a twist that I didn't notice in the cardboard mockup and required an additional twist to the metal creating a tip on the grips and putting it closer to my leg than it would have been had it been done differently. Have to say that I enjoy how it ended up, but I haven't driven it yet and won't until next spring so who knows if it will work in real life.
Second, it needed to be longer to account for the loss in length due to the bends. It might not be an issue as it feels good now, but something to think about if I ever do it again.
Still need to swap the boot to make it complete, but pretty excited to finally have it in the car.
Now I just need the Airgrabber hood.
