68 Dual Gate ... broken cover clips
 

After living with the cover to the Dual Gate with a broken off clip for ... well, forever, finally got around to finding a way to fix it properly.

Used the hardware I had in stock .. 4mm counter sunk flat head screw and then ground down a 4mm nut to fit inside the clip like a captive nut. Seems to work nice. Woodgrain should make it invisible. Bizarrely ... I still had the clip in a baggy.

And I'm on a mission to take the slop out of the shifter, nothing makes a car feel new like a tight, accurate shifter. Most of the Dual Gate pins are 0.250, most of the holes are about 0.260, going to see if I can make up some tighter tolerance pins, going through several linkage pins that .010" adds up. Most of the slop comes from the bottom of the shift lever where pin goes through it, going to have to see what I can do there ... can't really change the size of that pin I don't think.

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...1&d=1646564338

https://forums.maxperformanceinc.com...2&d=1646564344

While I'm talking about the Dual Gate ... boy the gear indicator seems kind of fiddly ... does it go on before the console mounting plate? Or between the console mounting plate and the top chrome cover .. I've got it between the mounting plate and the top chrome cover now ... basically only held in by snapping down the chrome cover.

Your timing for the post is really good for me. Just landed my first 68 with a dual gate shifter....... and the the top cover was loose. I removed it and both clips were broken off, but one of them was still in the bottom of the shifter so I'll reattach it like you did. Now I need to find another clip! With respect to the gear indicator, my lense and lamp housing were just sandwitched between the cover plate and shifter, but seemed pretty snug with the top cover on. I'm stumped though. How does this illuminate? The indicator lamp housing has a metal plate on top that blocks the bulb illumination. The lense sits on top of the metal cover. Is the illumination just supposd to somehow radiate though the edge of the lense or ???? Not really sure how this is supposed to indicate much of anything.

Regards,
Old Joe

Yep, that's how it works, there is a space on one side of the metal backing plate that allows light to escape to the edge of the lens ... works pretty good. Put an LED bulb in there and it's plenty easy to see at night.

So glad I had the other clip .. don't know where you'd find something like that. If you can't, with enough fiddling you'd probably be able to come up with something that extended beneath the cover and slid into a hole or clip that provided some kind of holding power.

Well I guess since yesterday was St. Patty's day the luck of the Irish continued. I found an old non-dual gate shifter I had in my pile of stuff to sell. Found a clip in there. It must have come off the cover for that shifter. Exactly the same as the dual gate clip. :beerchug:

Got mine fixed the same way you did yours. Just a tip for anyone else attempting this. As mentioned, the nut needs to be shaved down on the sides so it fits in the clip. The first time I did it, the nuts fit fine in the clips, but I couldn't get the clips to compress enough when I went to snap the cover plate in place. I then shaved the sides of the nuts down some more and squeezed each clip together with a pair of vice grips before tigthening each machine screw. That way I knew for certain there was enough material removed. Worked fine after that.

OJ