Anything I should do with it while it's out?  (Other than some light cleaning)  It's a little sloppy, but not too bad.  I didn't really see any plastic bushings that could be replaced and I don't know if any of the vendors have a rebuild kit for these units.  This question is a little embarrassing since it shows how long it's been since I've driven this car: there isn't supposed to be any spring action to help move gates on the 2-3 shift is there?  Like on a Hurst shifter?   Any possible way to mod it do so?  

 I bought a re-build kit for mine. Greased it up good with grafite grease, installed it, aligned all the gates, adjusted the linkage, it is as smooth as it gets with a 37 year old design. Be sure to aligne all the gates first, then adjust the linkage. You'll need a tool, I made one, to align the gates. Leave it in the shifter till you do the linkage, it will work much better. Once you have the linkage done pull the tool out and shift away.  LOL!

Dave, there is not much of a "detent" from left/right on the factory shifters. There are thin wavey shims between the levers inside the mechanism, but they don't offer a lot of springy feel. That being said, the shifter shouldn't just flop left/right, either. As Mark says, you can rebuild it...we have the technology...you can make it better....faster...stronger....

uh...wait a minit....just had a little flashback there....

The rebuild kits help take up some of the slop in a well used shifter, but it will never feel, or work like a real(ie: Hurst) shifter.

Dave, you can rebuid it but.

|UPDATED|7/6/2012 4:07:12 PM (AZT)|/UPDATED|

Thanks for the advice and info, guys.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the future, but for now, I'm just putting it back in as-is.  I don't think it's in bad enough shape to warrant a rebuild and I just want to get this thing put back together.  Larry, I am drooling over the Hurst, but that will have to wait awhile.  If I did that, I'd probably go with what Corvette Central has - the lever and ball are replaced with what look like OEM units (they come with a T-handle reverse lockout, but non-functional).  $350 - $400 if I go that way.   All in good time!

FWIW you can put the shifter rods in the other set of holes on the forks and get a short throw shifter.

My friend put a Hurst shifter in his '66 BBC roadster and I thought it was very difficult to shift but only drove it a few times.