I didn't have the energy to work on the car last week, went to bed at 9 pm almost every night. Being at school with kids age 13-16 all day is exhausting. I hope I get used to it soon.
Anyway, yesterday afternoon I stole a few hours in the garage. I started getting the B&M shifter I bought from
@ScampMike in place.
First up was to mount the shift lever and cable mounting bracket on the trans. The instructions said to replace two of the pan bolts with 5/16" bolts that came with the kit but the pan bolts were bigger. Good thing I had bolts from Ray!
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Then to figure out where to put the shifter. The mounting holes on one side lined up PERFECTLY with two of the holes on the original floor shifter mounting bracket.
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Too bad the shifter was backwards ... Took me a while to verify this. It sort of looked backwards when it was forward. So I cut the bracket out and dismounted the remaining linkage. I'll sell this of if I can find anyone interested here in Sweden. It's really worn and rackety.
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When I found the right position for the shifter I marked out where to drill. The instructions said to use washers as spacers but that just seemed wrong ang ugly. So I decided to fab some mounting tabs and weld them to the trans tunnel.
I don't have much in the way of material laying around but my eyes fell on the chain tensioner originally from the front clip I bought from Ulf back in april. It was pretty badly rusted and I really should have let it soak in molasses for three weeks but I didn't feel like waiting so I ground the worst off with my angle grinder, trusty old friend from Hilti.
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Marked some holes, drilled and tapped - straighter than usual!
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Cut it up and broke the edges on my bench grinder, mounted on the shifter with 1/4" bolts and washers from the batch
@halifaxhops sent me. I could have used M6 but why not go for UNC when I have it?
I then climbed into the cab with my Hilti ready and put the whole thing on the trans tunnel where I wanted it, expecting to spend half an hour grinding the tabs to line up with the sheet metal.
To my great amazement, they all fit PERFECTLY! There is a little bit if clearance on one of them but three line up with the trans tunnel stunningly well.
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I was so pleased with myself that I decided to not push my luck and went for a run in stead. And besides, my welder is out in the summer house on the coast so I wasn't doing any welding anyway (I'll be bringing it home next weekend).
Oh, and I once again found the drawback to not having a sense of smell. I noticed my hip was sort of warm while I was cutting the mounting tabs from the scrap piece.
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