Three speed on the coloum..

[gre]

I have a 3 speed on my 1969 F-100.. I cannot move the shifter.. Frozen. Links below disconnected. Still won't move. Removed steering wheel etc. The sleeve won't move. Tried blaster and set over night. Nothing. At this point I'm afraid to force anything for fear of breaking it.. These parts arn't cheap..I need help .. please.. Does the sleeve move up and down with the shift lever.. Is there some sight I can visit with some visual images and how to or what not to do?? Thanks fellows.. Bob

 

[LOWRIDER]

When you say "sleeve" I assume you mean the collar where the shift lever is attached with a roll pin. Will the sleeve move at all (like a 1/4 inch)? That sleeve fits over a tube that slides up & down (towards the steering wheel or towards the bottom of the column) to select one arm or the other on the bottom of the column depending on what gear you want. Sometimes when the arms or tube wear out they will jam and you cannot move the lever. Look under the hood at the arms on the end of the column and see if they line up together in the neutral position. They use to jam up when you went from 1st to 2nd. All you had to do was go under the hood and pull up the arm that down. The fix was to replace the tube and arms. This may not be whats wrong with yours but we'll start with this.

 

[34pickup]

I just recently had to make this repair on a 72.I replaced the shift tube and the shift collar with new parts I bought off of ebay.The shift tube can come up through the top if you loosen the column at the dash and lower it a bit.This is the second truck I have had to do this to. They are prone to wear out.I would bet that you will need to end up replacing both the shift tube and the collar.Like lowrider says,try to line up the shift arms at the bottom of the column first to see if that is where the interfenence is.Some trucks have an alignment hole that you can insert a tool like a pin to line up all the shift arms.