Ball shifter integrated housing

Abstract

A manual transmission shifter, which comprises a ball mounting a shift lever, a lateral shift control arm, and a depending shift control member, is mounted in a plastic shifter housing having a plastic closure plate. The housing has a plurality of spaced integral resilient spring fingers contoured to form a socket for receiving the ball. The fingers are interconnected at their upper ends to define an upper opening for the shift lever. The spring fingers define an opening smaller than the ball diameter at their bottom free ends and flex to receive the ball and contract to snugly embrace the ball. The shift control arm projects through a side slot in the housing to enable up-and-down vertical movement of the control arm from a centered neutral position. An integral spring finger biases the control arm to the neutral position. The closure plate has an annular surface which embraces the bottom ends of the spring fingers to define the size of the socket. The closure plate includes integral locking tangs which snap onto the housing and locking fingers received in grooves on a bellcrank pivot pin to lock the pin to the housing. A separate boot support mounts a shifter boot and includes pins which engage mating holes and grooves on the housing to orient and locate the boot support on the housing. Locking tangs on the boot support snap onto shoulders on the housing. No additional fasteners are used.