Hi everyone. Happy to be on board here! I recently purchased my dream car, a 1969 Camaro. The car has a Muncie 4-speed. Everything (relatively) seems to be in great shape with the car. However, the gearbox of the trans is borderline annoying. First and third gear are so ungodly close together---sometimes I can't tell if I am starting in first or third and it takes the fun out of driving the car! I have never driven in a manual vehicle before where I was so unsure of what gear I was in.

What can I do to fix this issue? Do I need a whole new gearbox assembly? What can I replace without replacing too much? Not sure what may be different about the gearbox on my trans vs. any other Munice 4-speed out there, but I can't imagine that they are all like this.

Any suggestions/advice? Thanks!

 

It's not your transmission, it's the shifter. What kind do you have? If you want to make finding the gears foolproof, look into the Hurst V-gate shifter. Hold the lever up with your first two fingers when shifting into gears 1 & 2, release lever when shifting into gears 3 & 4. Shifting is done in a straight line, not an H-pattern.

 

Thanks for the advice. I'm actually not 100% sure what's in there right now. I'll try to take a look next time I'm in the car. The current handle itself is very Hurst-looking, if you know what I mean.

I may consider the V-shifter. I'll be honest in that I probably prefer to row the gears old school though. I really don't mind the H pattern---I've just never done it on a pattern that was this tightly-spaced before.

 

Picture of the present would be good.
Muncie shifters have a finger grab under the **** to pull up allowing the shifter to be pulled left and up for reverse.
Hurst shifters have a hard spring tension to push against for reverse selection.
And no, there is not much room between 1st & 3rd, by Hurst design.
Designed for fast shifting with open palm from 2nd to 3rd and shifter takes care of the gate purposes - you pull/push to next gear.

 

I had a couple of cars with Hurst shifters, my '64 Corvette had the close ratio Muncie with 2:20 1st gear. It takes a bit of getting used to, the linkage was designed for speed shifting at the track. Give it a chance to grow on you LOL. You can always revert back to stock linkage, just make sure it's in good shape.

Mike