1967 Camaro 3-speed floor shift with a Muncie handle?

[camaro cat]

I posted this as a hijack to a topic on the Yenko site and thought I might get better responses here. It seems to me I did see something that stated this was true. My 1967 RS was built 3rd week of October 1966 in California. It is an L30 with the standard 3-speed trans with floor shift and a console. I have owned it since September of 1976 and it came to me with a 3-speed shifter with a "MUNCIE" shift handle. That shifter was long worn out and removed and is not available anymore. I ordered a new 4-speed shift lever from a Chevy dealer when I installed a Muncie. Finding correct shift rods was not fun or easy at that time. The new shift lever did not have "MUNCIE" on it so I had a colleague cut my old handle off and weld it on the new shifter which is in the car today. I have bought a replacement 3-speed shifter with a "T" mark on the handle but if my car was originally constructed with a 3-speed "MUNCIE" shifter handle, I would like to find a handle to put in this shifter.

Loren

[bertfam]

Loren, did you read THIS?

1967: The 3-speed floor shifter handle is typically plain. The 4-speed floor shifter handle is typically stamped with “MUNCIE” on the handle, though some shifters have unmarked handles.

Ed

[bcmiller]

I agree with Ed. I have never seen or heard of an original 3 speed shifter with Muncie on the stick.

[Niblet]

My original one owner 3-spd car has the HD borg warner "Muncie" omn the handle
I doubt the Saginaw 3 spd floor shifter had "Muncie" on the handle I cannont prove it only a thoery

[camaro cat]

But there it is Niblet. In the assembly manual, I find 2 part #s for the shifter asm., 9789337 for the Heavy Duty 3-Speed and 9789336 for a 4-speed. I know the 1967 SS 350 ordered with a heavy-duty Borg-Warner 3-speed could only be had with a floor shift while the standard Saginaw 3 speed came with a column shift unless a console was ordered.  I strongly suspect the shifter mechanism for both the standard and heavy-duty 3-speed transmissions are identical only having different shift rods & the mounting bracket stabilizer. I would think even the majority of shifter mechanism parts between the Inland 3-speed & 4-speed shifter are the same, maybe even using the same shifter lever. Do all known SS 350 's with a heavy-duty transmission have a "Muncie" shifter handle and then also the SS 396's? Did the Saginaw 4-speeds also get a shifter mechanism with "Muncie" on the handle? If so, the "Muncie" handle, while a decorative upgrade, really had nothing to do with having an aluminum transmission. If your SS 350 has a 3-speed lever with "Muncie" on it,  I can't see a reason mine couldn't also have been built that way even if yours was supposed to be and mine was an error. I suspect those shifter body mechanisms came from the same parts bin on the line unless they were delivered from Inland preassembled with all their shift rods in place. If this was an error, it was created at the Inland shifter assembly plant. Can anyone who has disassembled both Inland 3-speed & 4-speed shifters confirm that the shifter handle is either identical or different between the 2 kinds?

I have no intention of making a big deal out of this but what I do know is that when I purchased my car in September of 1976, long before almost any of us ever spent 1 second considering any of this important, my car, which even today is still largely equipped with almost all of its original assembly line parts, came with a 3-speed shifter that had a "Muncie" handle on it. I have no idea if someone in the preceding 10 years may have caused this change to happen or did my car come through assembly with an error from what it should have had.

Loren

[KurtS]

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised. It seems like they used the stamped and unstamped handle for the 4-speeds interchangeably. Muncie handles were definitely put on Saginaw transmissions. Not sure why that wouldn't happen with 3-speeds also.

[bcmiller]

Possible. But I would think the people putting the shifters with the rods would know to put Muncie rods with Muncie marked shifters and Saginaw rods with the non-Muncie marked handles - in MOST cases unless there was a shortage.