[DeTomaso] Shifter alignment question.

[JDeRyke at aol.com]

I'm unclear: is the misalignment fore & aft or side to side? If its 
fore/aft, loosening the rearmost u-joint clamp-bolt will allow you to slide the 
whole rod back & forth on its splines a bit. For side-to-side variance, on some 
cars I've had to bevel the shift-gate side enough so the shift stick would 
lay over far enough to select all possible gears.
As far as getting gears other than what you want, have you removed your 
redundent shift-detent? There's one built into the ZF and a second one just 
behind the shift stick; removing that one smooths shifts on almost any car 
(Thanks to Dennis Quella for this tip). But speed-shifting a ZF like its an old 
Muncie will often select the wrong gear due to twisting the 6-ft-long shift 
rod. To fix that, SLOW DOWN your shifts. Good luck- J Deryke