I am going to build a transmission tunnel and front floorpan for my coupe and wanted to see pics of what others have done. Does anyon make a pre formed tunnel? I am using a TH350 Transmission
I do not know of anyone making a preformed one .Problem is every car is different .My stuff always seems to be oddball for some reason .On this car as you can see , I brought the firewall straight down to meet the floor (no toe- board ).Most of the cowl was missing and had to be fabricated anyhow . This one is running a powerglide behind a Desoto 330 Hemi .
How's the drum pedal work? Was at the music store the other day and forgot to ask if they had an old one laying around.
It is mounted to a tab on the trans cover . It is not hooked up to the carb yet , but I'll have to build a simple bell-crank ( bolted to the inside of the firewall ) to get the direction right .
88 chevy truck ,Cut it out shortened and narrowed it ,You need the whole tunnel from front to back ,That is where the tapered part is .
Howell Sheet metal does. I know that many have had issues with them, but I have one of their tunnels and it worked great in my coupe. I never had any customer service problems with them, but my suggestion is to buy it off eBay from them. Shipping is a LOT faster that way.
Do you have acess to a sliproll? Tight on 1 side, loose on the other, start in the center and roll back and forth until you have what you want. Mark it flush with the floor, add 1 to 1 1/2" , cut and flange. Oh, you don't have one or access to one? Got a welding tank? Lay it on the center of your sheetmetal, pull up on 1 side only. You can "feel" the metal bend there in your hands. Lift the bottle and grab a big rubber mallet and treat it to some tender loving final finishing hits. The side you left alone will "tunnel out" from the side you worked. Yes, it's as easy as it sounds. Good luck...
mine's just crappy shit compared to what others have posted... But here you go: Oh, and yes, it's still in progress...
I took a slightly different route on this. I made everything removable & all of my individual pieces were two dimensional (because I'm not a great metal sculptor). The whole deal is seven individual pieces, four floor units, one driveshaft tunnel, one trans cover & one bellhousing cover. My ideas might not work for you, because I have a less bulky 4-speed trans. However, it might be helpful in some way, shape or form. I already had to remove the whole mess once, so it already paid off. Hopefully, the pics tell the general story.
Here's mine - I work in comercial construction and "borrow" the steel from the carpenters. I'm talking about the arched peice forward of the shifter. It is normally flat, but I just bend it over the rear of my engine stand. I have since made another arch right above the u-joint. I also made a removeable panel that goes between the arches. Make cardboard pieces fit over the arches and then transfer to sheet metal. I'm not a carpenter, but they run that channel steel through steel stud walls to stiffen up the wall, I use it for everything.
heres what I have to work with. the engine and trans will be about 2 inches higher when in place correctly, they're just sitting on blocks now the firewall is recessed 2 inches
My entries are both the wheel barrel on the fire wall,and sliproll and mallot on the tunnel. The '38 The '48
Here is a pic of the floor in my street roadster I built the bracing out of 3/4 tubing and made pannels to fit in between . It makes for ease to get to trans and bellhousing. I am not that good at forming metal so it was a little easier than building one piece.
I am not going to go the wheelbarrow route for a trans tunnel. I like the look of a narrow tunnel and a flat floor. Probably end up trying to roll one by hand with my bottle and hammer.
There are also lots of aftermarket tunnels available to replace rusty ones for regular production cars and they are usually cheap. 67-69 Camaro, 55-57 Chevy, etc. You might want to look into adapting one of those pre-bent tunnels to your floor. Just a thought. The Camaro tunnel is kind of boxy with 2 flat sides & a flat top, the 55-57 is more rounded, there are lots of other styles & shapes as well from other cars.
I found that most of the problem comes from having very limited space in the area where your pedals go. And putting your pedals in an awkward place makes a cars very un-enjoyable to drive. I try to build them as small as possible to have room for my size 13's. Bending them over your knee or a welding tank in a triangle and then cutting them inhalf to fold on one another, leaving an inch or so for a flange works good for me.
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