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New Detent Plates for 1958-1960 Thunderbirds available.
Installed my plate today, actually was not difficult and went smooth, Alexander's visual instructions really helped a lot..
seems to click into place really nice, mine was not in bad shape at all being low milage but changed it anyway. Thanks
mark
I just completed the installation of the new Detent Plate in addition to repairing my horn (spring loaded push button behind steering wheel not making contact with steering wheel plate for rotational contact). It seems to be much better, but I might also need a littel adjustment on my linkage (just had trans rebuilt). It is a little hard to get into Park.
A couple of extra hints should be added to the instructions.
1. Bushing Removal: It has a radial slot. Place a screw driver in the slot and tap on the handle end of the screw driver with you hand so as to rotate it. It is just slid onto the steering wheel shaft. After is freed up and can rotate, place the screw driver under the lip of the bushing and pry it up a little. At this point, the bushing can be seen and deleniated from the other parts. Now just slide the bushing up the steering wheel shaft by hand until it comes off. This is not explained well enough in the instructions.
2. The two bolts with square heads at the 11am and 5pm position: These have a purpose as I found out. When reinstalling the chrome bezel (which has the detent plate on the back), the two square heads need to go into the two square slots in the steering column tube at the 11am and 5pm position. When the chrome bezel is in place and the two bolts have the nuts run on them only about the thickness of the nuts, hold and wiggle the bolts as you tighten them so that the square bolt heads go into the slots. The bezel has stops that prevent the bolts from turning. As you tighten up the two nuts, the chrome bezel will tighten up against hemispherical shaped part of the steering column by sucking down the bezel to the steering column/square slots. The two bolts hold everything tight. If they are not secured in the two slots, everything will be loose and the shift lever will no go into the detents. And you cannot see if they are in the slots, you just have to feel it by the successful tightening of the assembly as you turn the nuts. It might be easier to have the shift lever in the large netural slot for the bezel re-installation rather than the very small slot in the detent for Park as you try to tighten and hold everything at the same time. Not hard to do knowing this additional information. This is not explained well enough in the instructions.
I am nearly sold out of this run of 1958-60 detent plates. I have almost one hundred satified customers. If you have not yet replaced your detent plate, now is the time to order. There might be a price increase with the next run as costs have increased for me.
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