[Keith Seymore]

I did take a couple pics of some of the areas I thought turned out kinda' nice:

a) Had to fabricate the linkage on the trans shaft. In order to do so, I had to calulate the amount of fore/aft travel from the shifter, and then make sure the length of the linkage was correct to get the desired amount of angular rotation. I made some graphs and then mocked it up with wood/cardboard before breaking out the welder...



b) Because the car is a Grand Prix (and therefore has a console mounted shifter) I suspect the shift linkage fabrication was a little more straightforward than a column shift car.

The idea for this came from my old go cart: the rod end is similar to the steering tie rod (the part I purchased is actually for a John Deere/MTD lawn mower!). The production linkage, as well as the thread on the rod end, both had fine threads, so I took a piece of 1/4 aluminum round stock and threaded both ends. I also took a standard tube nut, drilled it out and converted it to fine thread with helicoils. The result should be pretty robust and is kind of sanitary, IMHO. It also did not destroy or modify any of the original components should I decide to put the Slim Jim back in.



c) Here is the extension for the trans mount, fabricated from a piece of 1/4 flatstock and bolted to the original trans crossmember:



d) This was a tight spot: the linkage from the shifter dropped through the floor and interfered with a reinforcing rib on the trans tailshaft. I had to remove the rib to provide clearance.



The adapter plate (for the starter mount) was pretty straightforward. I even started the car (with no trans in place) after I got the flexplate mounted just to make sure the starter wouldn't drag and to check the flexplate for runout/wobble.

As I say, everything seems to work and I'm looking forward to trying it out!

K