Is there a smooth, tight, short throw shifter for A833 4 speed in a 69 RR, available?
(Non console)
If your bushings in the levers under the floor are wore out, then the neutral gate will be sloppy and most guys complain about the two-three shift hanging up and lots of missed shifts. In neutral, the shifter, at 8 inches from the pivot could be wobbling around at say .5 to .8 inch . You have to fix this first.
If your shifter is mounted in a rubber vibration isolator that has shrunk over the years, that will add to the slop.
The external levers at the trans like to work loose, and if run that way, they will wreck the flats on the softer studs. Those retaining nuts are special, in that they have a serrated flange on them. Once the flats are rounded the nuts will never again stay tight and the neutral gate will wander around which is frustrating as heck. The only cure I know of is loc-tite Red.
The forks inside can wear also if the trans has a history of jumping out of gear, and you have been trying to hold it in with the stick..... or if you drive around with your hand on the shifter. However, these are on the trans side of the detent and do not contribute to the slop of the stick in neutral.
As to a short-throw shifter; there are only three ways to achieve this and practically only one; which is to shorten the stinking handle. But when you do that, no matter how you do it; it's gonna take more power to make the shift, and the higher you spin the engine, the more power it's gonna take.
The best way is to just buy a decent hi-perf short-stick kit, with everything in it. The one I recommend, is the one I bought in about 1971 to install in my 70Swinger 340, which already had a fairly nice factory Hurst.
It's a Mr.Gasket Bang! shifter
and the stick is about 8 inches tall. For this last install, I made all my own thick-wall rods out of seamless tubing, with an internal diameter that could be threaded to 3/8. To combat the power issue, I moved that shifter back between the buckets and raised it up high enough so that the upper attaching bolt could be installed from inside the car. That shifter is 48 years old and has been in near continuous use since 1971, following me from one Mopar to the next. With it, I haven't missed a shift since 2004.
This trick will only marginally increase the speed of the shift, which is actually controlled by the ability of the brass synchronizer rings to brake the gears. If you put thick gear oil in there or IMO, synthetic oil, this will really kill the brass ring's performance. Some guys report success with synthetic, but I had my trans down three times in one week, to mod it for synthetic, with zero improvement. But all those improvements, with straight ATF, made it shift like lightning.
If you install straight ATF, the rings CAN (not WILL) really bite. I have mercy on my cluster pin, and run 50/50 ATF/ 80-90EP oil.
If you decide to go inside the trans, you might as well chuck the gears in a lathe,and polish (deglaze) the cones. I use 120Grit emery cloth and bias the roughness towards the upshifting cuz I don't care how long it takes to downshift.
And to shift at 6000 plus, should you chose to, you will likely have to street-slick-shift at least second and third gears. With this done, you will be able to shift faster than the brass can,at all times, and they'll just be along for the ride. I skipped slick-shifting first and fourth because I have never needed to bang it into low, and going into 4th,with 3.55s, the car would be going between 100 mph to 113, and I never go there.
It's a lotta work to cut those parts out, so I quit with just second and third. Now I see Brewers (I think) has them ready-made.
A bonus with the hi rear mount, is that it stays clean; since I installed it in 2004, it's never had to be cleaned.
Yeah, so
Happy HotRodding