Minimum-Wage Mustang Part IV Pro-5.0 Shifter

The Pro-5.0 Power Tower shifter sells mail-order for $179, which is competitive with the other big-three shifters.

The first step is to remove the console. After popping off the cover plate...

...there are several screws that must be removed.

Don't overlook these.

It might be easier to disconnect all the wires and simply remove the console from the car than to swing it to the side as we did.

Once we had the shifter exposed to the open air, we made sure the car was in Neutral, unscrewed the shift knob, and removed the bolts that held the shifter boot to the trans tunnel. These bolts hold down the upper boot as well as a lower boot that seals the inside of the car from all the nasty mung underneath.

After removing the bolts, we pulled the boot off the tunnel. The lower boot is usually sealed to the floor pretty well, so we carefully pried it up off the floor and worked the rubber around the shifter to get it off.

Now the four bolts that fasten the shifter are visible. The shifter is sealed to the trans with silicone, so it may need to be pried off.

Be careful not to bend the floor with your prybar. If you bend the floor, don’t worry. It’s pretty thin and can be bent back easily. Once the shifter was unbolted from the trans, we pulled it up and out.

We scraped the old silicone off the sealing surface of the trans and made sure that the surface of the new shifter was clean. Next we put some silicone onto the trans and smeared it around with a finger to make sure it was even.

We installed the new shifter, making sure that the ball on the end went into the bushing in the linkage. The Pro-5.0 shifter comes with new bolts. You don’t have to reef on them, just tighten them. There is a small Teflon bushing where the ball on the end of the shifter goes into the linkage. Make sure that this bushing is in the hole in the trans linkage, not stuck on the ball on the old shifter, because you will need this part.

The next step was to adjust the shifter stops. Pull the shifter into Second and hold it, screw the stop bolt in until it touches the shift lever, and then back it away one full turn. We marked the bolt with a marking pen so we could tell easily what one turn was, backed it out, and then tightened the locknut.

The same adjustment was then done for the forward stop.

This part wasn’t in the instructions. We had to cut the lower boot around the edge of the first fold in the rubber to clear the shifter. Stretching the rubber boot around the new shifter until it was below the steel ring was the hardest part of this job.

After a last look at the cool gold anodized steel handle, we put the upper shift boot back on, bolted it down, and reinstalled the console. Don’t forget any wires that were previously disconnected. We screwed the shift knob back on and leaned back in the seat with visions of curvy open road in front of us, Camaro headlights dwindling in the mirrors.

The tools required to bolt in a shifter are minimum. A couple of sockets, a 1/2-inch wrench, a razor blade, and a few screwdrivers, and you’re set.

Performance can be as subjective as it is objective. Improving the way a car feels does not necessarily mean that it’s any faster, but an improvement in visceral sensation is still considered a performance increase. A good example is the installation of an aftermarket shifter on a T5-equipped Mustang.

The stock shifter does just what it was designed to do. It allows the driver to shift the transmission effectively without transmitting a bunch of vibration or being too notchy. You see, Ford has to build a car that a bunch of people will buy. Not all of us are hard-core gearheads that will put up with a lot of irritants in the name of speed. Most people are put off by a vibrating, notchy shifter handle. Why do you think Honda sells so many cars? Unfortunately, this concession to mass appeal means we get a shifter that is less than it can be. Fortunately, it leaves the door wide open for the aftermarket to improve upon the factory.

One of those aftermarket companies is Pro-5.0, whose Power Tower shifter we installed in our Minimum-Wage Mustang project this month. The market price for this unit is $179, which is competitive with other shifters on the market and which comes in brutally close to our limited monthly budget. The Pro-5.0 shifter has positive stops to keep us gorillas from bending shift forks, and it also boasts a no-miss 2-3 shift feature that we know from experience comes in handy. If you’ve tried to power-shift a T5 with a stock shifter, you know what we’re talking about.

Post-installation revealed a huge difference. Third gear is now just a hard shove away. The only disappointment is that this slick-looking piece gets covered up with the shift boot. It was so nice, we wanted to use it as a hood ornament, but Pro-5.0 said it wasn’t supposed to go there. Maybe somebody makes a clear shift boot.

This is one installation that anyone can do in a driveway. Necessary tools are limited: a Phillips screwdriver, a large flat-bladed screwdriver (or a prybar), a 5/16-inch (8mm) socket and ratchet, a ½-inch (13mm) socket and ratchet, a ½-inch (13mm) wrench, a single-edged razor blade (or scissors), and some silicone.

A good set of manuals for the car is something everyone should have, as they will tell you how to remove all the parts that surround a performance upgrade. In this case, the most involved part of the whole deal is removing the center console. On early cars like our ’86, there are a couple of wires and screws, but on the later models, you may only need to remove the plastic trim around the shifter. Either way, if you can see the four bolts that hold the shift boot down, you have gone far enough to get the shifter out.

Follow along as we upgrade the subjective performance of the Minimum-Wage Mustang. Did the Pro-5.0 shifter objectively make the car faster? Maybe by a few hundredths, due to the quicker shifts. But more important, the shifter (and therefore the driving experience) feels more serious, more solid—racier. Considering that you shift the transmission a couple hundred times on every commute (well, at least in Los Angeles), that’s a big deal.