Just burnt up my 3rd shifter cable in less than six hundred miles. i've tried two three foot cables and one five foot cable. I've tried plastic and wire ties to keep them out of the headers,but they always seem to touch, sooner or later. I've got an old Hurst-mechanical shifter that I bought in 1985. I'm going to install it and never want to see another B&M rachet shifter again.

are you burning them up because the headers are open? try some header extensions or run them through something to shield it. do you have good grounds? many a cable has been burned because the engine/trans are not grounded properly. good luck..

I always run them through a heat insulator sleeve and use stainless steel zip ties to keep them away from as much heat as possible. I've never had any problems.

i agree with lefty got my insulator sleeve from auto parts store, i ran it through wired tied and am running headers real close no problems, about $15.00

Imperial Services claims to have wire-wound shift cables that won't melt.

mine runs from the floor, hugs the transmission forward, then I routed it between the starter & the block to keep it away from the headers. Zip tied it to a tab I installed at one of the inspection sheild bolts. I've always found them to be pretty resilient. Only thing you can't do with one is let it lay directly on a header tube.

car is a 65 Coronet with a 440, trans from a 71 New yorker, doug thorley headers and a mini starter. the three foot cable was almost too short, so I didn't have a lot of choices as to how to run it. The 5 foot cable appeared to have possibilities. I routed it as far around everything as possible and tried wiring it up out of the way. The lever was pretty stiff to use, but appeared to work ok until today. I guess the movement of the cable finally got it into the header. The old shifter I am thinking of using is a cheap Hurst unit that basically bolts to the floor, extends to the left of the transmission and hooks to the shift lever by use of a rod. The downside is that you have no feedback from the shifter and have to rely on the feel of the trans shifter lever.

I have a B&M Quicksilver that I modified to be stock appearing. The included cable is routed around my downpipe (I am running manifolds) and is about 1.5" away but I wrapped it with some 3/8 fuel line and its been happy so far.

I had the same issues with the cable on my pro ratchet. I now have a 4' cable and while it's a tight fit it doesn't touch my supercomp headers. I also run it through a thermal sleeve for protection.

I've also heard the standard duty cables are more flexible than the heavy duty ones like the ones that come with the shifters. May be worth looking into.

I feel your pain

I just ordered a new B&M cable for my Demon. The cable lasted less than 1000 miles. I thought that I had the cable far enough from the headers but it still melted through. It was 2 1/2" inches away at the closes point

I'm going to try and wrap it with something this time.

Bought the 4 foot cable and never looked back, no wire tire either!