Here is what I came up with for a side shifter.

As you can see, I dont have room for another type of shifter. This works great in the space I have.
I am not including measurements because it will be different for every buggy. With the heims, tubing & all parts I have about 40 bucks in it. I still have to put 1/4" spacers on the heims to allow for another few degrees of rotation which will allow me to get 3rd & 4th gear.

The design is really simple & easy to build.


Keep in mind that I dont have a machine shop. I made this with a chop saw, grinder, belt sander, hand drill & a good welder.

The nosecone assembly consists of some 1 inch .065 wall tubing, part of a stock coupler, a male 1/2" heim, a 1/2" bolt & a fine thread 1/2" nut thats about twice as deep as normal ones. Remove the sheet metal from a stock VW shift coupler & you are left with a part that fits nicely in the 1" tubing. I welded a 1/2" bolt in the end of the lower tube & the fine thread nut at the end of the tube with the coupler part welded in it.

_________________

The crossbar is 1" tubing with 1/2" bolts welded in the ends. The vertical arms are 1/4" thick by 1 1/4" wide steel with 1/2" holes drilled for the heims. I will brace them once the spacers are in & I final weld them on the crossbar. The 1/4" thick seat belt tabs are welded to the frame with some scrap 1 1/2" tubing welded to them & then slotted to allow the crossbar to drop in. 1/2" flat washers are a perfect fit in the ends to keep the crossbar in place & allow me to use nylock nuts so I dont overtighten & bind it up.


The rotator bar is 1/2" rod fine threaded at both ends with 1/2" female heims.

This will differ depending on you shifter. My supershifter uses 1/2" steel rod threaded for the 1/2" female heim & I drilled a piece of 1 inch tubing & ran the rod through with a 1/2" bolt welded in the bottom.

_________________

NICE use a bushing and smaller bolt to let your joints swivel more. they sell miss-alignment bushings for hiem joints so you can put a 3/8 bolt in a 1/2 in joint

i really like that better then the empi stuff. nice work

_________________
i wana ride, i wana ride, i wana ride

now bondo your welds and its a show buggy linkage no just joking you did a real nice job , its cool to see you come up with nice work like that

_________________
Theirs no replacement for displacement !

Thanks. I only need about 3 degrees more to give me what I need & I dont want to reweld in 3/8" bolts for the misalignment bushings. Im just going to use regular heim spacers to get what I need. It will save me a lot of rework.

Thanks everybody for the kind words. Im just glad it works right or Id look like an ass.

_________________