ok, so I FINALLY got around to doing this conversion. I delayed it for a long time for few reasons, 1st i knew i had some welding to do and, at the time I had no 50amp outlets in my garage and 2nd I knew a previous owner had glued the carpet to the floor and it was in great shape and i didnt want to ruin it pulling it up. I brought the car to my dad's cause he had the welder and the outlet, haha. With the help of my dad and my 12 yr old son we tore into this. I can honestly say, while it's a very cheap shifter and I WILL be changing it to a Hurst, the kit from National Chevy is very easy to install. I am really not much for blogs or threads so I will do my best to take you along w/me through this little adventure. 1st we pulled back the carpet and removed the cover over the tranny in the floor.
next we removed 3 bolts from the tail shaft of the tranny. Then bolted the adapter from the kit to the tail shaft and also removed all the old linkage to the column shifter. (sorry but for some reason i cant upload the pix of this part..iphone pix??) Next we put the removable trans tunnel cover back on to mark for cutting and then cut it out to clear the shifter
this next part was an option i took to personalize it for me...the main reason I did this conversion was because I wanted a huge, obnoxiously tall shifter...I mean if i was more talented I would cut an "H" pattern in the roof and have the shifter poke through the roof w/a shrunken head shift knob up on the roof..ala mad max style!! LOL. I removed the set up from the car again so I could mock up 2 shifters i had and planned on welding them together for length. After the mock up and checking for clearance, i welded them together.
Next we mad adjustments to the shifter itself, this was a real pain in the ass because this kit puts the floor shifter right under and against your right leg so i had to make some adjustments w/the next best tool to a hammer...the torch! lol with that taken care of I moved onto changing all the stock linkages to the new ones and also made all the adjustments to the rod linkage lengths. This was a very long process, due mostly to the fact that my pops is ol skool and doesnt believe in measuring...lol. This is DEFINITELY a 2 man job, my suggestion is find the extreme position of the shifter in its forward position (1st or reverse or what applies to you), measure from the shifter to the linkage on the tranny and adjust the rod to that length and then do the same for the gears that go in the opposite direction (2nd or 3rd or what applies to you). My pops kept making the same WRONG adjustments over and over from under the car while I was in the car locating where the shifter was.....we got it...EVENTUALLY!! lol Next I proceeded to remove the reaming linkage on the steering column, most of you 3 on the tree are familiar w/this linkage im sure, they often would hang up, usually in 1st or reverse, and always at the worst times haha, and then I removed the steering wheel to remove the column shifter Next I buttoned it all up, put the wheel back on, put the , not too damaged carpet, back down and then I *cut*(SEE NOTE for *) out the carpet for the shifter and installed the shifter boot supplied w/ the kit. *NOTE* I later learned that you can heat up an awl and burn through your carpeting instead of cutting it...much cleaner and professional looking. Here's the finished project, for now. I wanna go taller still w/the shifter and it needs more adjustments, torch wise, because 1st gear leaves little room for my hands on the steering wheel and the shifter. As you can see I,m learning how to do this posting thing as I go along and hopefully I'll get better at it. The last pic is to remind you to wash up when done! LOL
The Jalopy Journal
