James B

As some of you know I was starting my quest to change gears this week. I began the wonderfull fun task of switching my car from the original TH400 to a manual transmission.

Yesterday consisted of much looking, thinking, cursing, and wondering why I am to big to fit in the floor pan. While i was doing that, i also took out/off, the front seat, driver side dash, and steering column. That wasnt realy that hard all though getting it back in will probubly be

Today, i took the nasty rusty brackets up in there out and accessed the pedal assembly. It took me alittle bit to figure out the 4 bolts that bolted it to the fire wall went up into the wind sheild wiper compartment, but once i figured that out it was smooth sailing. Dad and I loosened the brake booster and i yanked the pedals out of there.

Those pedal brackets are freakin nasty. So I reckon im gonna sand blast those and paint them while I have them out. Also before i put them back in i would like to order some new bushings and stuff so it will be nice and clean.

Tomorow I plan remove the drive shaft and automadic transmission. Hopefully that wont be to bad. Once the automadic transmission is removed I will go to the auto parts store and pick up a new rear main seal because i think mine is leaking and i heard it is easyer to change when the transmission is out.

Thanks for the read, and if you have any words of wisdom lemmie know! Also, I have taken digital pictures of this stuff but I dont know what picture hosting site to use. Any suggestions there?? thanks

James
automatic 73 corvette


[Modified by James B, 5:40 AM 6/30/2004]


[Modified by James B, 8:28 AM 7/3/2004]

80TexasC3

Good Luck with this and I will be watching with interest. I had planned to do this until I found my 4speed with low miles.

matchframe

Did you work out the Z-Bar bracket?

Another option is to use a hydraulic clutch release. That way you will not have to worry about welding the bracket to the frame.

I use http://www.villagephotos.com to host pictures and it works well.

www.bigdogvettes.com

James B

My pictures seem to be to large to put on village photo

Anywho! on with the update. Today after football practice I took a nap, ate lunch, and went to the auto parts place to pick up a few things i needed. Once i got home i started to prepair for to take the automadic transmission out.

I removed the exaust pipes, and the crossmember and drive shaft. while i was doing this my freind disconected the speedo cable, shift linkage and that kind of thing. I tell you what, i love air ratchets! they are freakin awesome.

Once that was done i wrestled with the jack and transmission raising and lowering that trying to figure out the best way to take off the 6 bolts that held it to the transmission, they were pretty tight and the wratchet wouldnt lossen them so i had to get to the top 2 from the back of the engine compartment and in the prosess i knocked the oil pressure gauge line out

So when i finaly figure out how to take them out i un bolted them and removed the transmission lines. I was suprised how easy it was to take every thing off. I then lowered the jack and slid the transmission out from under the car and it is currently sitting in the middle of the walkway in the garage

tomorrow is mainly going to be a cleaning day. Im planning to get 31 years of crap off of the thing and then go to the store and get some things like fly wheel bolts, new copper oil pressure gauge line, and a pilot bearing

I reckon the next step is to put in the manuel transmission, clutch, fly wheel, and put the crossmember and drive shaft back on. By the time i get all that stuff put in i believe my bushings and clips and bracket for the clutch bar from zip products.

Well im going to bed, Its one in the morning and i still look like I came out of a coal mine. Sorry for the spelling errors.

James B
transmissionless 73 corvette

Paul Borowski

James, I am also doing this to my '75 L-82 coupe. Yeah, it seems as though there is bracket on top of bracket to get to those pedals. I ended up on my car having to remove the pedal assembly back out once I installed it as it came from a manual brake car. I did'nt think there was a difference, but there is. A manual brake car's master cylinder sits up slightly higher in the engine compartment and uses the upper hole in the brake pedal for the push rod to the m/c, whereas a power brake car uses the lower hole. A manual brake car's pedal bracketry has welded nuts on the back side whereas a power brake car does'nt. I am also going with a new Hurst shifter that will be bolted directly to the trans vs. a frame mounted original type shifter. Got a few more parts at this past Bloomington Gold, so I should be all set.

matchframe

I bought my clutch pedal assembly several months ago. I noticed that the brackets were different, so I guessed that the assembly I bought came from a manual brake Vette. I was able to move the pedal assembly to my original bracket so that it was a direct bolt in.

Here is a link to some of what I did: http://home.earthlink.net/~bigdogvettes/id20.html

www.bigdogvettes.com


[Modified by matchframe, 6:13 AM 6/30/2004]

Pacha

Didn't you have any problem with the brake light switch?
I did the same but the clutch pedal hits the brake switch bracket, mmmm did I get a Vette pedal?????? :mad

StingrayDK

Im doing the same swap as James B, and im just wondering if an hydraulic clutch would be a better option for me? I got a donor car so i should have all parts needed but if i can avoid welding a bracket to the frame in the engine bay, that would be better. What parts are involved?

Anders

Jim Shea

Paul,
It is interesting to note that the Corvette Black Book lists J50 (power brakes) as an option on 1975 Vettes. However, 100% of the cars were built with them. Power brakes were officially made standard equipment in 1976. The 1975 AIM book has the manual brake specific parts called out. The 1976 AIM book has all of the manual brake specific parts deleted.

I was surprised that there were two different brake support brackets and two different brake light switch brackets, that are called out in my 1975 AIM (manual and power brakes).

My 1975 AIM shows two shoulder bolts coming from inside the passenger compartment, going through the specific manual brake support bracket, and extending out through the manual brake master cylinder. There are weld nuts on the two lowest attaching points on the manual brake support bracket.

I obtained my 1976 AIM book directly from Chevrolet Engineering way back in the 70s. I was able to borrow a 1975 book from Chevrolet in 1983 after I bought my 75 Vert. I went through my 1976 book versus the 1975 book -- page by page. I copied every 1975 sheet that was different from the 1976 sheet. So I have all of them with any differences side by side.

I have found that even though both of my books came directly from Chev Engineering, there were a few pages missing.

Paul Borowski

Jim, my '75 IS a power brake car. I had to do as the other poster did. I removed the clutch & brake pedal from the purchased assembly and installed them in my power brake assembly bracket. I also believe they are the same "switches"(except for maybe '68), but the bracket that activates the brake switch plunger is different between manual & power brake cars. The Black Book may say 100% of '75's had pbrakes, but I know that's wrong. I've seen probably over 10 manual brake '75s in the last few years.

James B

Alrighty, so up untill today i had taken the pedal aslembly out, dis asembled the interior, and dropped out the automadic transmission and shifter. Following all that i used brake parts cleaner to wash the back of the motor, and transmission tunnel where all the greese and crap was.

Today has been a long day, i didnt get started till 930 because I was touring colleges and then had some grass to cut since i have no denero

So i was inside sitting on the recliner looking at the haynes manual trying to figure out what to torque the bolts to and my neighbor down the street knocked on my door and wanted to know why i was sitting on my butt. haha so we got out there and resurfaced the flywheel with a belt sander (redneck as hail we were) and bolted it to the motor.

Next i beat the crap out of the pilot bushing till it went in and following that i stuck on the clutch disc and pressure plate (while being carefull not to touch the cleaned surfaces) So no problums there.

We then stuck on the bell housing and made everything line up ok and then came the next part. transmission insertion yeah baby.

So i was excited, but let me tell you, it was a bitch to get that thing all up in there. I layed on the creeper and held the trans up in the air while my buddy guided it into through the throwout berring, clutch disc and into the pilot bushing. Now lemmie tell you what, im an offencive lineman on the football team and benchpress about 275 but i dont care how strong you are, holding that transmission up there when its not wanting to go in is no fun at all! I thought it was gonna be a peice of cake!

So anyway once we got it in my buddy whos 35 years older than me says ok now dont let it fall out or you are a queer I thought that was suposed to be my line! We ran into another problum, one we both couldnt figured out. The bolts that bolt the transmission to the bell housing did not line up. We could not figure out why. He said he had never seen any muncie transmission that would not bolt right up to a GM bell housing. The only thing we could think of was that where the bolts go into the bell housing were messed up. But we got it in by cross threading the threads. Which should not be a big deal because the transmission is still perfictly straight in line with the rest of the drive train.

Im realy excited to have that transmission in there. Now all there is left to do is put the pedals back into the car, reasmble the interior, and ad the clutch linkage. Then i will be done!

Tomorow i plan to sand blast the brackets that go under the dash, paint them and possibly put them back into the car. once i do that, i will put the drive shaft in, put the crossmember back in, and hook the parking break back up. I Think i will also re dye some interior parts and get it ready for putting back in the car and ill either do that monday or sunday. Sorry for the long read, Hope everyone has a safe 4th of july weekend!!!

:flag :flag :flag

James
4 speed 73 corvette

matchframe

Sounds like you are making good progress!!

Did you have to do anything to your crossmember to accept the 4 speed?


www.bigdogvettes.com

Budman68

My advise: Make sure to put the neutral safety switch connector on before you reinstall. It is a major pita to get the electrical connector on with it installed.

I'm 6'2" 220 and It was one hell of a time. Taking the seat out helps and taking lots of Advil for neck aches.