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Transport Evolved EV Workshop: This Rotary Shifter Upgrade To The F150 Lightning Should Have Come As STANDARD!


 There are plenty of benefits for Ford F150 Lightning owners thanks to the truck’s close relationship with the gasoline F150—from shared components to a wealth of aftermarket add-ons. But the Lightning also inherits one less desirable trait: its massive sh
There are plenty of benefits for Ford F150 Lightning owners thanks to the truck’s close relationship with the gasoline F150—from shared components to a wealth of aftermarket add-ons.


But the Lightning also inherits one less desirable trait: its massive shifter. Designed to auto-fold so the center console can become a makeshift desk while parked, the shifter is elegant in concept—but in practice, both ICE and EV F150 owners have reported significant issues. In some cases, the shifter can fail entirely, leaving the truck stranded.

To avoid this problem, inventive owners have developed a retrofit: swapping in a rotary shifter from other Ford vehicles. This not only frees up console space for storage but also makes the “desk” usable by a front-seat passenger while the truck is parked.

Today, we’re performing that upgrade on Nikki’s F150 Lightning, complete with a 3D-printed part she designed herself. The result is functionally superior, aesthetically pleasing, and likely the quickest upgrade she’s made to her truck so far!

youtu.be/3PnVYCLsxW0

👉 Watch on YouTube — or if you’d prefer (we would), PeerTube.

⏱️ Chapter Breakdown:


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🎙️ Credits:


  • Host: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
  • Camera, Edit, Color: Vi Horton
  • Art & Animation: Erin Carlie
  • Producer: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
  • Music: via Artlist.io
  • © Transport Evolved LLC, 2025


Read the full transcription here:
When the Ford F-150 Lightning launched, it came with a nifty gear shifter that it inherited from the same model year gasoline F-150s. It allowed you to tuck the shifter away and use an integrated desk in your truck when you weren’t driving it, which made the interior much more practical, especially in an EV when waiting to charge.

The problem is that fancy shifter has been notoriously problematic, breaking and stranding owners. So what a lot of F-150 Lightning owners have been doing is replacing it with something that, if you’re a Mach-E owner, you’ll probably recognize. I’m going to show you how we did this mod, why we did this mod, and it’s probably the quickest and easiest mod that anyone can do to an F-150 Lightning.

Unlike the last mod I did when I tweaked the driver dash on this truck, this one is relatively quick and relatively painless, and many people have been there before. And to do this, you’re going to need a few things. First, you’re going to need a 10mm socket or some other way of undoing the 10mm bolts that hold the whole of this assembly in place.

You will also need to buy a shifter module off one of the Ford parts websites. The F-150 Lightning owner’s forum has a big long list of all of the compatible shifters. Just because it’s a rotary shifter doesn’t necessarily mean it is compatible, but I ordered one that various lists said was compatible, so fingers crossed, it actually is.

You’ll also need a replacement surround. This one was printed at home on my Bamboo X1C. Yes, I own a Bamboo X1C. I purchased it before Bamboo started doing weird things regarding right to tinker, and much like those people who drive Teslas with the “I bought this before Elon went mad,” I bought this before Bamboo started to be anti-open source.

So this is printed in ASA CF. ASA is known to be very temperature resistant. The CF—it’s debatable whether the carbon fiber impregnation actually adds any structure or not because it’s little pieces of carbon fiber as opposed to actual strands. But I really like the finish and the print quality. I came up with a custom profile to print this. This whole thing took about a day to print. I printed it slowly so that it would have a great finish.

And then to fit this module into this, I’ve just used some standard bolts here. And I also had to cut off a little tab on the top of the shifter because the shifter actually has a triangle tab here. And as you can see, this is not a triangle.

So let’s get started. And the first thing you’re going to need to do is move the shifter knob by turning the vehicle on. You’re going to need to move the shifter knob into the upright position. Then obviously turn your truck back off again because you do not want your truck on while you’re doing this, because you’re going to be unplugging modules. And if you unplug modules while the vehicle is on, you will upset the truck.

And we’re just going to undo this bolt. The reason we’re removing this bolt first is because you can’t undo this bolt, obviously, if the shifter is stowed. And in order to make it look good and in order to make sure that we don’t lose these parts, and we may want to set this back to factory spec at some point in the future, I’m just going to put these parts back in. Then I can actually tell the shifter to stow away, and that makes sure that everything stays nice and smart.

The next thing we need to do is pull off this trim piece and this trim piece. We shouldn’t need any tools, but we do need to be a little careful. There are locating pins at the front on both sides, and there are locating pins on the side. So what we have to do is just pull it towards the seat like so, and then gently pull it backwards. And it comes off in one piece.

With both of those side panel pieces off, now we’re going to remove the trim piece that holds this on. And again, it’s just a case of popping it up very gently and very carefully. And like the previous ones, there are little poppers all the way along. You have to be really careful as you take it out. Now, don’t go just pulling this straight out because there’s a plug underneath that we’re going to have to undo, and it’s right down here. There we go.

Now this is out. We can remove this, and these two locating pins are very problematic for people who’ve done this before. Sometimes people actually cut these off. I’m going to try and keep it as factory as possible. I may regret that later.

Next, we’re going to undo the rest of the bolts. There’s one here, one here, and one down here. Now I am doing these bolts.

Let’s talk about why a lot of people are replacing these. As I mentioned in the introduction, they are problematic. Ford devised this shifter and the auto-fold mechanism as a neat way to give you a little bit more cabin space in the F-150 Lightning. But unfortunately, they also break really regularly.

Now the internal combustion engine trucks from the same period also have this same shifter if they don’t have a third front seat. If they have a third front seat, they actually have a column shifter. Why Ford didn’t just do a column shifter on the Lightning? I will never know. But these units tend to break. They tend to fail, and they tend to leave people in a bind.

And so what people have been doing is exactly what I’m doing right now and converting them to a Mustang Mach-E style shifter. Not only do you get an extra storage space—in my case, I’ve chosen a cup holder—but you also have the ability to then fold the entire work desk flat while you’re driving along the road, as long as you’ve obviously selected a gear. And that means that if you have a front seat passenger, they can actually make use of that front desk area.

And that is the reason we’re doing it for this truck. Partly because I think it’s cooler, partly because I want to have the storage space, and partly because I don’t want this to break while I’m driving along.

You’ll see I am pulling out the entirety of the shifter mechanism now. And then on the underside here, you’ll see there is this little tiny clip. And what we’re going to do is just pull this clip towards the actual body of the connector, and it should just pop off.

All right. So to disconnect this, you have to push down the center tab and then move the connector out, pull the connector away. This is what we’re going to connect to the rotary shifter. And then we can carefully take the stowed shifter mechanism away and put the new one in.

Some people ask, what about the neutral mode?

In the old shifter, there’s a button that allows you to put the truck into neutral mode for 30 minutes, which is great if you need to tow it somewhere in an emergency. For this particular modification, you’re going to just use the center button, which on this particular variant of the shifter is marked “L.” Some others have an “M” on there for manual. But as long as you press and hold it, you should have neutral hold. Everything else works as it should.

And then to put this connector back in, it is keyed. So it’s impossible to put it in the wrong way round. It only goes in this way round. And then you’re going to pull the lever back towards the upright position, and it will snap in place. And then your new shifter is in place.

Now, to put everything back, you’re just going to do the reverse of what we just did. First of all, I should note that if you’re using 3D printed parts, as most people doing this mod will be, you’re going to need to be careful that you don’t over-tighten anything. And I would suggest that you probably should use hand tools instead of impact wrenches. I say that because I’m sure some people would use impact wrenches.

In order to check this all works before we put the trim back on, I’ve connected the key reader here. I didn’t mention earlier, but there’s a key reader in here. If your battery runs low on your key fob, you can actually insert your key into this hole down here and it will allow you to turn the truck on. Obviously, it’s important to connect that when doing this test. Otherwise, you might get some errors. And also make sure that your truck is unplugged.

Turn the truck on. And then I’m going to put my foot on the brake and drive, neutral, reverse, park. And then you’ve got the neutral hold. If you put it into—I think you have to actually put it into neutral and then hold down the “L” button—and then it says “30 minute neutral mode enabled, not at home mode.” So I should probably have noted that earlier. And it slowly flashes to let you know it’s in neutral, which is lovely.

Now, what happens if I get out of the truck with the truck on and it’s in drive? Let’s find out. Yep, it moves automatically back to park. I actually purchased a motorized one. So you’ll watch again. It just automatically goes back to park. Everything seems to be working, so I’m happy. I’m going to turn the truck back off, and let’s put all of these trim pieces back on.

So there you have it. We finally put this in after weeks of promising it. Yes, the material doesn’t quite add up, and I can understand some people would look at this and get a little shirty about it. But I don’t see a reason why you couldn’t modify this to make it look more like that. But to be honest, I really quite like the finish. I also 3D printed a little plug to go into the top here to cover the bolt up. And I need to make that one a little bit taller because it’s gone into the recess a bit far, so I’ll reprint that a little taller.

And I’m also going to make a textured cup holder. So I now have one, two, three cup holders. And granted, this is a little bit wobbly, but it’s no more wobbly than the original kind of space next to the shifter. And I can always just pop it there. The cool thing, though, is it will also accommodate my phone, which is very nice.

And of course, if I’m driving along and I’m with someone who needs access to the desk system, I can put the truck in gear and I can put the work table down. So let me know if this is something that you would do on your F-150 Lightning, or if in fact you just leave it as standard and then take it to the dealer if it breaks. Let me know in the comments below, and let me know if you want us to do more of these tutorial modding-style videos for your EV.

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