I'm making the move to a 700R4 soon and will need to put in a new shifter as the current set up is a prowerglide with a column shift lever. I have been looking at something like the Mega Shifter by B&M as I like the way it looks, but I have heard that the ratchet-type shifters can be a pain in the rear. Also heard that some of them are difficult to get into park. Does anybody have any favorites? The car is generally pretty mild and I won't be beating on it a lot or taking it to the drags, but I would like to bang through the gears every now and then. It looks like the options available for the 700R4 is somewhat limited. Car is a 68 with a 327. The floor is wide open due to original column shifter. Any help/comments would be appreciated.

I had the same dilemma. I ended up going with a original style shifter with the shiftworks (www.shiftworks.com) kit to make it shift the 700r4. If you decide that route, you will have to purchase a console, but that looks better to me. Then you can put your guages in the console.

Since the 700R4 has four 7 clunks unstead of 6, the bellcrank on the tranny will have to be shorter to accomidate the short stroke of the shifter. Often the gate plate is close enough that it will work fine. It kills me how some of these places want $80 for a shifter conversion kit when there isn't $10 worth of parts in the kit. Almost forgot the bezel...ok make it $25.

I have to speak up in favor of the Shiftworks conversion kit. I thought it was a good value at $80. Granted, there isn't a lot money in the materials, but someone put a fair amount of thought and effort into it, not to mention marketing, investment, risk etc. The thing works great, and you don't have to hack up your original console to make something else fit.

I put the megashifter in mine and I like it. It does take a couple of weeks for it to loosen up to the point where it goes into park easily. I like the safety of not mis-shifting. It's just too easy to hit the wrong gear with the stock shifter.

I installed the B&M Pro Ratched shifter. I am happy with it and no, never had a problem putting into any gear, including park.