Help! 1958 T10 transmission arms

[ChevyII64]

I am currently helping my father restore a 1958 Corvette. He bought it as a basket case in 1991 and collected parts over all of these years. We are getting it running now and my question is: Are there different lengths of shifting arms for Borg Warner T10 transmissions for various cars / trucks. I am not sure what the transmission he got came out of and I feel the throw of shifter is a bit long. How can I tell if it has the correct arms on it for a stock 1958 Shifter?

Thank you in advance. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Mitch

 

[Mac]

Welcome to the CAC!!

I'm not sure why you started off your thread in the Stolen Corvettes forum but I'm going to jump you over to the C1/C2 Forums where someone might be able to provide the answer you need.

Mac

 

[ChevyII64]

Sorry, I'm not much of a forum guy. Just started actually.
Thanks,

 

[Mac]

Glad to help. Let's see if someone can find an answer for you.

Mac

 

[Tom Bryant]

Welcome to the CAC

Mitch,

Here's what I can tell you but it may not be of much use.

There appears to be 3 different sets of shift arms for Chevrolet full size cars and Corvette. GM calls them lever, shifter shaft. All 1957 through 1963 Corvettes with Warner 4 speed used the same ones. 1958 and 1959 full size passenger cars had a different set of part numbers as did 1960 through 1963. The parts books from back then don't list any dimensions. Without actually having them in front of me I can't tell you the difference other than part number. I don't think there are any markings on the lever itself. The difference could be length due to the much longer shifter handle in the big cars and/or it could be offset due to shifter location. One thing I can tell you is that the shift throw on a C1 Corvette is quite long. If you are used to newer cars or a Hurst shifter I'm sure you would question the long throw on these early shifters but that's the way they were.

If you can find any numbers on the shift levers you have let me know and I'll see what I can find.

Tom

 

[Tom Bryant]

You know, after thinking about this for a few days it seems logical that the passenger car levers (shift arm) would have to be shorter or else the lever throw at the shift knob would be excessively long. That would be due to the lever being twice or more in length than the Corvette. Passenger cars would need shorter levers (shift arm) or else the shift knob would swing from dash to seat. I think that this requires more research. I'm going to look into this. Wouldn't it be nice to shorten up the throw simple by using Impala levers (shift arms)?

Tom