[Dynomite]

I have a hurst v matic, I think maybe a v matic 2 but I don't remember which or what the difference is between them. I bought it new. I like the shifter but I`ve had had trouble with the linkage. If I set it in L1 I get no park, and if I set it in park I get no L1. I used the trans lever that came with the shifter, but none of the cable brackets fit my 400 so I used the better of the ones it came with which is only held on by 1 bolt in the pan but doesn't move around or anything. It did used to work but was a real pain to dial in like it just barely had enough travel to go through all the gears. Now it's like I'm dealing with a powerglide shifter since It's literally "missing a gear". This trans is going south. Whining, stuck governor, grinding when shifting, you name it. I pulled the pan and the filter was full of fresh aluminum shavings, and not small ones either. It looked like gremlins had been running a machine shop inside my transmission. I put a new filter in it and its working again with no slippage but makes a grinding noise from 1st to 2nd. Is it eating the case? Can a screwd up linkage cause the damage I saw? Can I get a shorter cable for this shifter? It`s 5 feet long and just ridiculous. Any help is appreciated fellas.

[PA Camaro Guy]

I have a hurst v-matic... would agree it takes a lot of messing around to dial it in right. On my TH350, I can say that the clicks for each gear on the translever are very distinctive with very little play. And that's on a pretty well "used" tranny. So on one hand, it seems hard to believe that on a car that is running and moving (road and engine vibrations) you could occupy that in-between spot for very long before it settled on one of the gears. On the other hand, when I first set it up, I did seem to land on an in-between area with the shifts. I could push the car back and forth on the shop floor and hear a very distinctive and loud clicking from the tranny that went away when I further adjusted the cable length.

The long cable can be looped around over the tailshaft by first heading it toward the passenger side then around the back, and a clean forward approach underneath the drivers side to the oil pan mounting bracket. Be sure to fasten the cable up to the floor pan so that you don't run the risk of it ever getting into your drive shaft. Think the tail shaft of the 350 is a little shorter and where my cable makes a loop is right at the U-Joint so this was a detail needing attention.