HELP! 3 speed manual to t5 swap

I have a 74 grabber maverick, 302 and 3 speed manual. I just picked the car up this summer and have been replacing the brakes and cleaning out the interior. I have not driven it as it still had the oil and antifreeze that it had the last time it was licensed - 1985! I was very excited about this car but now the transmission is stuck in reverse (still on the jack stand from the brake work) and won't come out. I had thought I would drive it with the 3 speed but maybe someday swap out to a T5. I actually like the idea of keeping this car stock as it's so darn complete right now. I have a 67 fastback mustang that I performed the t5 swap, well actually I went to a Tremec 3550 but i also have a t5 sitting in the shed. For the mustang there is information galore and all I had to do was call mustangs plus and they sold me every part I needed, cross member, a spacer for between the bell housing and the transmission to accomodate the longer input shaft, etc. However, I can't find any such information on this maverick.

First, anyone have any suggestions about my current 3 speed issue with the stuck reverse gear, and second, can anyone direct me to any detailed tech articles with photos on swapping a 5 speed T5 for my 3 speed? I'm not a newbie when it comes to turning a wrench, but I'm no gear head either. I like to plan as much as possible before I leap and want to make sure I'm not getting in over my head on this one before I proceed. Any help would be appreciated! I love this maverick, I just want it to turn out like I know it can.

 

Ok, welcome to the world of external shifter linkages. What is wrong is you're halfway into two gears, reverse and 2nd (unless reverse is left and down, then you're in reverse and 3rd). Get in, push in on the clutch and move the shifter all the way into reverse, then back to neutral, that should free it. If not, get under it, remove the shifter rods from the shifter levers, then manually move each lever into neutral, then align the shifter levers together to where the holes in each lever align, stick an allen wrench into the holes, locking the levers together, then re-attach the shifter rods

 

Ok, I'll try that. You have a lot of faith in me for having never met me, external shifter linkages are like a rubics cube to me, not a clue! I had a top loader 4 speed in my mustang that actually I had rebuilt shortly before the t5 swap. It's sitting in the shed too. I'll try what you suggest and if I can't figure it out I'll corner a friend and make them do it. Any thoughts on the t5 swap?

 

I'd swap the Toploader in. Long ago I was the same as you, in mananging to get Toploaders hung between two gears. Until one day I realized how I was accomplishing that. Everytime, I had mistakenly shifted partway into reverse, then over into 1st (with a Hurst shifter on the 4 speed) All it took to unhang it was go back fully into reverse, then pull it back into neutral. When you get really good at it, you can remove the linkage rods laying on the ground, reaching under the car and doing it completely by feel.

 

not sure, but I think the lengths of the 3 and 4 speeds are the same, but not sure about the spline count. I do have a yolk off my mustang drive shaft (built a new one with the t5 swap so i could swap that with the 4 speed if I wanted. It has a hurst shifter though and I think it required a little butchering to get it in my mustang. I wanted to avoid that in this car. I do hope I can free up the 3 speed, too bad you don't live around the corner, thanks!

 

My Toploader will stick in reverse sometimes if I baby it back to netural. If I pull the shifter out of reverse and let the shifter bottom out before going to netural it won't lock up. You can use a drill bit also to align the shifter linkage if you don't have a allen wrench handy.

 

The 3 and 4 speeds are the same length, unless you have a Galaxie Toploader, then it's 3 inches longer. Compare the distances of the shifter bodies from the rear of the tailhousing to see if it falls in the same place., If not, you can always swap the tailhousing of a Toploader to a different application to get the shifter where you want it. There were two other shifter locations for the 4 speeds, one is the Torino location and the other is a mid tail location for the big block cars (Mustang and Fairlane) Spline count should be the same unless it's an early (pre 66) Toploader with the weird bolt pattern in front. Those had 25 spine outputs. Yours is likely a 28, same as your 3 speed. Only other was the bigblock 31 spline output transmissions, in which case you can sell for big bucks and buy a Tremec 5 speed to replace it.

 

They were 3 locations. The 65 Falcon location was next to the gear box.

 

The Torino location was the same place, unless it's the Falcon I'm thinking of. 3 total was what I'd said before.

 

Well I haven't had a chance to get a good look at the bottom of the shifter. Do you think any of this might have something to do with the reverse lock out for the steering column lock? At any rate, I have other issues. I took my mustang to the strip last night (first time ever) and apparently tore out the 9". Not cool for my second pass! I thought it was impossible, but apparently ample wheel hop will do that! Guhhhh, it seems everything I own is on jack stands right now.