Dang shifter........

I just may have gotten myself into a pickle.....Yep.....Want to convert column shifter to the floor in my 66 nova.....I bought the shifter. jacked up the car and hell....There ain't any room to do anything....Am I going to have to have it put on a hoist??........I was hoping to do it myself...Any clue would help.........

Sense nobody has replied to my shifter problem...I had an Idea ...Would it hurt the body's integrity if I took my grinder and cut out the hump to gain access to the trany ???.Then have it welded back in place.............Anyone....

More detail, please. manual or automatic? 3-speed or 4? Brand of shifter?

Jim

Jim...
Thanks for keeping me on my toes....
The Car is a 66 nova with a factory 3 speed on the coumn. 230 IL6cyl.....The shifter I bought is a hurst 3 speed conversion shifter.The factory shifter was sticking in gear so I adjusted the linkage and it's been working fine for a few years.....My wife won't drive it because of what happened...So...I thought it would be nice to convert the shifter to the floor...It would help her...The shifter looks fairly easy to install except for the top mounting bracket...The bolts on the trany have to be removed to install those brackets...Thats why I thought it would be easier to cut the hump out.....The SBC will take some time for me to build so I wanted to put the shifter in ..I'm not in a hurry to do any of these projects...I know what happens to those who hurry.......They fall flat on their face...........Thanks again.......Randy...

I suppose you could cut the floor tunnel, but I would do a LOT of research first, to know where to cut. Since it's NOT frame you're cutting, the only thing you probably need to be careful of is body mounts. I can't imagine they're in the tunnel, or the fuel line brake line either...

Thanks cb-99....I got under the car...I have it off the ground 6 inches or so....Nothing in the way....No brakelines...nothing that I can see....The distance between the bench seat and the dash is about 16 inches...So there is enough room to make my cut...A peanut grinder with a cutoff wheel will do a clean job..I use it often for cuting....Other than starting my car on fire..It'll do great....My neighbor's been a welder for years...He said he would help with the patch...No problem.....I wanted to hear your inputs too....Thanks for your help..........

Get a template for the cutout for the shifter baseplate, and cut THAT first. Then if you have to cut out further to one side, you should still be able to secure the shifter base. Don't cut out too much tho; it will weaken the baseplate mount.

You might be able to cut an entirely different hole, which you can patch over with sheet metal. BUT, if you try to patch the 'extra' from the side of the baseplate hole, it will throw off the baseplate mounting...

Take some pics here and post...

Thanks cb..
I have the carpet rolled back....I'll take a few photo's. I intend on reusing what I cut out...I'd like to do as much installation of the shifter from inside the car....(mounting brackets and such).I'll cut out the hole for the shifter after it's mounted...I'll have to get under the car to hook up the linkage and make all the adjustments there.....Also I'd like to hook up my reverse lights during the install....I haven't researched that yet....I know there's a switch you can mount to the trany for reverse lights....The store where I bought my timing chain has them....Thanks again..

If you need more room, drop the transmission cross member and lower the transmission down, watch the distributor cap on the firewall, you might want to pop the cap off so you don't break it.

If possible, get a look at another car with the floor pan already cut, even a picture may help you get a sense of scale. If in doubt, start conservatively and make it bigger as you go. I like to bore out the corner holes with a hole saw and use a sawzall to connect the dots.

Lay it out with magic marker and a scale and try to do a neat job of it. The torch is a last resort. If you have an air chisel or air grinder, these are what I prefer for fine tuning the cut out. Also use the shift boot plate as a template and stay inside of it by an inch on all sides.

Bob

Thanks for your input Bob...

I spent the day installing the shifter....I did take a saw zall to cut out the floor pan...Worked great....Shifters working fine....Took most of the day I had to fabricate a few piece's to make it work ... Now I have to install a switch for Backup lights.....I have the wiring specs...It's a Light Green wire they sell the switch at a local High performance store....Couple of $...maybe 10 or so....I just have to figure out where to mount it....I also took some photos of the project..I'll try to post them when It's complete....If you have any ideas about the reverse lights, please fill me in....Thanks again...

Here's the oil pan I'm watching on Ebay.......prob is...Bidding ends in one hour.. 6:30 Pacific time...
http://i4.ebayimg.com/06/i/001/18/14/a8a7_2.JPG (http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320314829353&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT&viewitem=#ebayphotohosting)

Good job on getting the shifter in. The key thing is not to hack up the floor as it will hurt the value of the car. I used to do the corners with a hole saw, mark it out so it would be as neat as possible. I'd file the edges so I wouldn't cut my hands working on it.

I never bothered with reverse lights, I'm sure it can't be that hard to do if you can find a schematic for the wiring.

The pan in the photos looks right, you even have the pump shaft and collar that goes with it.

Bob

I'm going to try to post some photo's of the shifter install........
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/6435/dscf1048gp3.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/6712/dscf1049fd8.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/8295/dscf1050jk1.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/9251/dscf1051la1.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/2359/dscf1053cv4.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/7250/dscf1059to4.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/7548/dscf1057dk7.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
There you have it....The wiring was rather simple for the reverse lights...Only they kept shorting out because of the floor metal....I corrected that and they work fine....There's a dark green and a light green connector on the steering column that I taped into....The switch sold for $30 at a high performance store....I bought one at Pepboys for $4...and made my oun bracket....I still have a few details to take care of with the boot...That will be the toughest part of the project.....anyway..Thanks for your help guys...

Ok...I think I know what happened...Tryin again...
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/5742/dscf1048xr8.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/8744/dscf1050cj4.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/6476/dscf1051wq2.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/7456/dscf1053kl2.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/9315/dscf1058cy9.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)
http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/998/dscf1057ld1.jpg (http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://my.imageshack.us/v_images.php)