Shift rod, all screwy Options

[timothy_nd28]

I'm slowly piecing back together my car. The shell is from a 74, but I'm using 75 parts for reassembly. The problem I'm having is the shift rod isn't aligned quite right. The 74 tub already had an existing front half of the shifting shaft in the center tunnel. I decided weeks ago to leave it in, and reuse it. I installed the rear (75) shifter half yesterday and I couldn't get the bar to fit inside the ball fork assembly, unless I took out that plastic bushing. Even with it somewhat installed, it seemed to have a high angle of attack entering the fork assembly. The bar was also rubbing against the CV hub axle.
I assumed that this was only possible due to me interchanging different year shafts, being the front half is from a 74 and the rear is from a 75. So today I dropped the engine, pulled out the front half of the shifter rod and replaced it with my 75 rod. So now the whole rod, front and back, is from the same year (75). After reassembling all of this, I get the same result. The end part of the rod entering the fork assembly is at some weird angle, the rear shaft is brushing against the CV hub, and I’m at a loss here. All the set screws are correctly aligned, and I’m pretty sure it’s not operator error on my end. When I install the rear bushing, (the one on the fork assembly) the whole shaft has little to no movement. The firewall bushing is new, and from what I can tell, everything from the engine firewall to the front of the car is fine. It’s just the rear half seems wrong.





One of these pics shows the rear shift rod having interference with my CV axel. Sorry for the poor quality pictures. I would love to see some pictures of a properly aligned rear half shift rod.