Don, you're right about cheap shifters. Been there, done that. But I'll relate a story about one of my friends in High School who used to drive only '49 Fords. He scavenged the column shift mechanism from a boneyard '49-'51 Ford and cut it down to a very short little shifter unit complete, then mounted it (I can't remember where, floor or trans/bellhousing) and he had a complete OEM floor shifter. Pretty slick.