My "new" '74 Duster- or why I need a project like a hole in the head
Kinda depends. The fabrication part of it was easier than I thought it would be. Some of that was definitely the ToddRonn crossmember, which was great. The tunnel wasn't that bad at all. Dial indicating the bellhousing took longer than I thought, and that would have been a lot easier and a ton faster had I not been working under the car at the time.
The hydraulic clutch part of it was harder than I thought. I lost a lot of time to that too. Part of that was I did all my test fitting with the line routing for the bellhousing with the viper slave. So when I had to switch to the corvette slave everything was in the car. I probably should have just pulled the bell again at that point and set it up off the car, but I didn't, so that took some trial and error and every error meant trying to reinstall the transmission only to find an interference issue. So that part wasn't "hard", but it was super frustrating. Especially knowing I was that close to the end. The spacers needed for the slave made the difference, spacing it out further because of the shorter overall length of the corvette slave moved the lines closer to the bell and required the re-route.
So it was kinda funny, I had been holding off on doing the swap because of the amount of fabrication it needed. But in the end the fabrication was probably the most straightforward part. The mechanics of the hydraulic clutch conversion was the worst part of the whole deal by far. And some of that was just the parts I chose, guys had used the viper slave before but they'd used them with Viper transmissions, and I didn't realize how different the T56 magnum was from the Viper version. And then I couldn't just buy an aftermarket slave, because I also used a Borg & Beck pressure plate which has a smaller inner diameter compared to the diaphragm clutches, so there was a clearance issue with some of the aftermarket slaves.
It was totally worth it though. I swapped over to 4.30 gears from 3.55's, which works a ton better with my cam. And I still get to cruise the freeway at 1,000 rpm less than before. The shifting is a ton easier and faster too, much shorter throws on the shifts.
As it sits now. I reused my carpet, so, yeah, there's an extra hole. I also made a set of console brackets for when I install my A-body console. I did the test fit already, but I have a little refinishing to do on the console still. The hole will be under the console once it's installed.
Kinda depends. The fabrication part of it was easier than I thought it would be. Some of that was definitely the ToddRonn crossmember, which was great. The tunnel wasn't that bad at all. Dial indicating the bellhousing took longer than I thought, and that would have been a lot easier and a ton faster had I not been working under the car at the time.
The hydraulic clutch part of it was harder than I thought. I lost a lot of time to that too. Part of that was I did all my test fitting with the line routing for the bellhousing with the viper slave. So when I had to switch to the corvette slave everything was in the car. I probably should have just pulled the bell again at that point and set it up off the car, but I didn't, so that took some trial and error and every error meant trying to reinstall the transmission only to find an interference issue. So that part wasn't "hard", but it was super frustrating. Especially knowing I was that close to the end. The spacers needed for the slave made the difference, spacing it out further because of the shorter overall length of the corvette slave moved the lines closer to the bell and required the re-route.
So it was kinda funny, I had been holding off on doing the swap because of the amount of fabrication it needed. But in the end the fabrication was probably the most straightforward part. The mechanics of the hydraulic clutch conversion was the worst part of the whole deal by far. And some of that was just the parts I chose, guys had used the viper slave before but they'd used them with Viper transmissions, and I didn't realize how different the T56 magnum was from the Viper version. And then I couldn't just buy an aftermarket slave, because I also used a Borg & Beck pressure plate which has a smaller inner diameter compared to the diaphragm clutches, so there was a clearance issue with some of the aftermarket slaves.
It was totally worth it though. I swapped over to 4.30 gears from 3.55's, which works a ton better with my cam. And I still get to cruise the freeway at 1,000 rpm less than before. The shifting is a ton easier and faster too, much shorter throws on the shifts.
As it sits now. I reused my carpet, so, yeah, there's an extra hole. I also made a set of console brackets for when I install my A-body console. I did the test fit already, but I have a little refinishing to do on the console still. The hole will be under the console once it's installed.
