Saving 3 on the tree.... help

[BigCountryx]

I'm helping my neighbor with his 1949 Chevy 3100 that he just picked up. He really wants to keep the 3 on the tree, but it's as sloppy as they come. He was actually down to barely being able to use Reverse and 1st... 2nd and 3rd were out of the question. I tore into the box and found that someone had lost the spacer and slide on one side so the forks were just moving around like crazy. I chopped up some flat bar with a sidegrinder and a cutoff wheel to somewhat match the existing set... and it worked pretty well if you can believe that. This is temporary and just a way for him to get it rolling. What I'm wondering is..... Is there someplace that sells or rebuilds the boxes, or at least sells the parts? I've searched for days and haven't found a thing about it so I'm thinking I may be SOL. Thanks for any help you guys can give