Quick questions guys… I am working on toploader swap into my 69 cougar and have a question. My tranny came with a hurst comp plus shifter… but I am having trouble getting the reverse arm on the mechanism to lock into place… 1st-4th work perfect. I have searched online and have read all sorts of different varying answers… but simply where is reverse on this shifter for our cars? I have read that the stock ford mech was left and down, but then read with hurst shifters it is left and up. and then I read one person said it was to the right and up. I have tried them all and my shifter mech will not engage the reverse arm, but I just want to know what is correct so I can go from there. Thanks.
Hello.
To the left and up of gear 1 if its a toploader w hurst. Maybe you have a 3 speed?
/Tommy.
What he said. I installed a hurst competition shifter on my 4 speed Toploader and it is left and up.
I ended up disassembling the entire shifter assembly for inspection and cleaning. I cleaned all the crud out of it and reassembled and I was then able to get the shifter to engage the reverse arm. I did however have a problem with assembly… this is a hurst comp plus shifter but it is a dated model… the reverse arm off the shifter looks exactly like the 1-2 and 3-4 arm. On new comp plus shifters the reverse arm sticks out more towards the transmission and is not the same size or shape as the other two arms. I purchased a new hurst mounting kit which apparently is supposed to accommodate the modern shifter reverse arm as with my shifter the reverse rod was short by about 1/2’'. I ended up having to mount the rod arm on the tranny backwards in order to make it work (sticks downwards rather than upwards like the other two arms) plus use a different rod (for a falcon), which means my reverse gear is left and down rather than left and up. After installing all new bushings, and using anti seize in the shifter mech it truly shifts awesome… no binding… just crisp firm shifts. Thanks for all the help!