We’ll add a bit of commentary here. We have to deal with these 1940-48 side cover shift housings all the time. In fact, we have to add an extra half hour of labor time to those jobs for exactly what the poster had to deal with. Ford installed the steel pins (which secure the two shifter levers to the shifter shafts) with solid steel pins. I don’t know what the specific manufacturing process was but they are very tight. They might have been heated like a rivet and the pin expanded in the opening by the tools that flared out the other end. Having a tight installation is a good thing but it makes for a hard job of removing them during a rebuild. We’ve seen MANY of these in our shop where the transmission had some degree of a rebuild in its past life, but nobody had ever disturbed those pins. Which also means that no one had replaced the oil seals behind the levers.
Basically, you have to grind off one end of the pin and then drive it out with a punch and hammer. Sounds fairly easy right? Having done hundreds of them, I can assure you that we feel like we were blessed that day if both pins came out easily. Will and I would agree that we’re happy when just one pin drives out with no hassles. Usually however, we’re stuck moving on to the next step.
That next moment means drilling out the pin….and even this involves several steps. Try to mark the center of the pin (where you ground off the head) and use a smaller bit than the 1/4” diameter of the original pin. I like to use a 3/16” bit and plenty of oil as I drill down into the pin. The shift housing can be secured in a drill press vice or simply use a big vice on the workbench. I don’t drill all the way through. Then I use a 1/4” punch and large hammer to attempt to drive out the old pin. Hopefully I’m successful here and can move on to the other pin to repeat the process. If the pin fails to move, you may have to drill further down or go to a 1/4” bit. When you remove material from the center of the pin it allows the steel to collapse inward enough to allow you to knock it out. In the worst case scenario, you might have to drill it completely out with the 1/4” bit.
We’ve moved away from replacing the pins with similar solid steel pins….they never fit as tightly as the original factory installation. We now use 1/4” steel roll pins (I think they are 1-1/8” long) and drive them in. As hard as they are to hammer in, I think they are adequate by themselves, but I like to add a 1/8” tapered steel pin inside of the roll pin (coated with some locktite compound). Everything is nice and secure now and we were able to replace the shaft seals!
