geoff

My '88 pickup (the "el cheapo" model) has the original factory vinyl floor (no carpet, mats, center console or anything that fancy). I just got the Marlin shifter seat bushing yesterday, and started to look at taking the shifter out. It looks like I need to take all the vinyl out first, or maybe enough so I can get access to screws holding down the shifter boot. The question is, where do I start to get access to get the vinyl up? It looks like it goes under the bench seat rails, and also up under the dash, and it's all one big piece. I would rather not tear it, as it's still in halfway decent shape. Although I am scared what I'll find under there.

I tried to search on "remove flooring", but nothing came up

UKMyers

I'm not totally familiar with an 88 but on every other truck I've tore into all you had to do was remove the screws holding the plastic around the shifter boots, take off the knobs and pull the whole thing up over the shift levers. Then it's just 4 bolts that hold the shifter to the tranny and you have access to the goods.

geoff

It looks like any screws are under the factory vinyl floor covering. The rubber shift boot seems to come right out of the vinyl, but I could feel some screws under the vinyl. There's absolutely nothing surrounding the rubber shift boot. It was like this when I bought it new. This was the totally stripped out model. The only option listed on the window sticker was the dark gray metallic paint.

TNRabbit

ScubaDuck

My '89 has carpet, so YMMV, but I was able to slide the tip of a #2 screwdriver under the carpet, then angle it up enough to remove the screws holding the boot on. The carpet stretched a little, but came through the R&R process just fine. Might be worth a try if your vinyl is at all flexible.

Good luck-

-Scubaduck

geoff

Here's a close up of the shifter boot

and here's a better perspective view of the interior, showing the original plush door-to-door vinyl floor


There aren't any screws easily accessible from above without cutting into the vinyl. On a closer inspection, I think I may have to unscrew the sides holding the vinyl down by the door jambs, the pieces in the footwells and the bolts holding down the front of the vinyl bench seat. If anyone knows of the right way (or a better way), please let me know

TNRabbit

Wow! I Can Hardly Take My Eyes Off All That Scrumptious-looking Vinyl!!!

geoff

Before you start lusting after the vinyl look too much, keep in mind this baby (the whole truck, not just the interior) set me back $5888 brand new in November 1987! As practical as the material is, I have to admit that last year I spent $140 to have that expansive bench seat recovered in new vinyl to cover up the naturally forming ventilation areas that slowly appeared over the previous 18+ years. However, the plush but highly practical vinyl floor covering is 100% stock and original.

Maybe these pictures will start the trend toward all vinyl truck interiors again

But seriously, if you have any suggestions on how to get the shifter off without disassembling half the interior I would love to hear them

ShortyzKustomz

Mine has the mat. Pull the sill plate off 1 side and you can get the mat folded over enough to get to the screws. Take the screws out the plate and take the shift knobs off. and you can manuever the the boots and plate out of there

geoff

Here's what I had to do on each side:

• Remove the 4 door sill screws and remove the door sill
• Remove the 2 screws holding the covers in the footwell and remove the footwell covers
• Remove the front and rear bolts for the bench seat
• Fold the vinyl floor back so I could unscrew the 4 screws in the plate holding the rubber shifter boot down
• Pull back another rubber boot and unscrew 4 screws keeping the shifter in

From here, I was able to get the shifter off and replace what was left of the shifter seat with the Marlin Crawler heavy duty shifter seat

The shifter once it was removed:

The shifter socket didn't look worn afer 176K miles, so I figured there was no point in swapping it out

The old shifter seat. The rubber part wasn't in too bad shape, but any plastic around it had disintegrated except for a few recognizable chunks


And here's what it looks like with the Marlin Crawler replacement part put in. It didn't go in quite as easily as the pictures on Marlin's web site would have you believe. I had to fiddle around with it to get the right combination of orientation so it would rotate into position


The grease in there looked pretty nasty, but everything was shifting OK, so I didn't mess with it.

Since I had the two rubber boots off, I cleaned them up and applied some 303 Protectant to keep them flexible for another 20 years

As you would expect after almost 20 years, there was a lot of really gross looking crud under the vinyl flooring. The padding was pretty wet, probably from the last few years of rains (not this year), so I'm in the process of drying it out. Last year I patched several holes in the firewall and passenger fender where I suspected water was leaking in. The weather turned cooler right when I started to pull the shifter out on Saturday, so things are still pretty damp even after some help from fans and a heat gun

Unlike many of the other comments here, I didn't notice much difference in shifting. It seems to shift into first gear and reverse a little better sometimes, but it could be as much psychological as anything else.

And despite being unable to reach Marlin by phone or email, I ordered the parts on a Friday afternoon and they arrived on Monday, so I can't say anything but great service.