700-R4 Transmission Upgrades - Super-Mega Trans Tricks

Since Toy Shop Transmissions had just finished up with the internal transmission modifications, the car was still in the air on the lift. This made it easy to begin with the cable and shift arm installation. The old linkage was removed and the new control lever was installed.

A bracket is included to hold the new shifter cable in place. Special care should be paid to the instructions, which call for spacers between the bracket and the transmission. These spacers allow the bracket to fit without modification to the transmission pan.

Another cable is attached to the shifter mechanism. It controls the steering wheel lock and only allows the lock to engage when the selector is in the "Park" position and the key is in the "Lock" position. It must also be removed from the shifter before continuing. More instructions on this later.

The last thing to remove before unbolting the shifter is the neutral safety and reverse switch. This unit can be unplugged, and after unbolting the shifter the entire assembly can be pulled from the vehicle.

The new neutral safety and reverse switches are included with the B&M shifter. These must be installed on the shifter before installation and will require a slight modification to the wiring. For our 700-R4, which features an additional gear as opposed to a non-overdrive transmission, a restrictor bolt must be removed to allow the selector to move into overdrive.

There are detailed instructions for proper mounting of the shifter. Our Camaro required using two existing mounting holes and drilling two new holes. Once ready, the shifter was set in and firmly secured in place.

After the shifter was in place, the steering wheel lock cable was secured and stashed out of the way. To keep the cable in the park position we used a small zip tie and wrapped it around the cable, then used a large zip tie and threaded it through the small tie and the end of the cable. This worked well to hold the cable all the way in. B&M includes a warning that due to the fact that the cable is now always in the "Park" position, the steering wheel can be locked whenever the key is turned to lock (this means that if you turn the key to lock while moving, the steering wheel will lock up).