Those wheels are beautiful and would certainly go with the theme of the truck. In reality I’m hopelessly stuck on Torque Thrusts. I thought they were the most perfectly designed wheels ever created when I first saw them in the early 60’s, and that enthusiasm hasn’t diminished over time.
On to the next segment in the saga - in 2005 things were going well enough to do a transmission swap back to a stick shift. The TH350 was in excellent operating condition, and had served well for 13 years. But I grew bored with the automatic and longed for the enjoyment only afforded by side shift manual 4 speed.
I started the swap around a Borg Warner Super T10 from an 82 Firebird I inherited from one of my sons. The gear set in it was in beautiful condition, but it had a cracked synchro ring and a funky tail housing designed for a torque arm which mounted the shifter on the passenger side of the transmission. The shifter also looked pretty goofy, being designed for a production car to mount directly on the centerline of the transmission tunnel. The only photos I have of this trans are very poor quality, as they were originally captured on video tape, converted to DVD, and then photographed off a TV screen:
I found a complete rebuild kit online and had it installed by a local manual transmission expert. After two installations and removals for additional repairs, and needing even more repairs - I got sick of all the fruitless effort and replaced the Firebird box with a brand new Richmond Super T10 from Sallee Chevrolet in Oregon. I opted for the 2.64 low gear so it would have plenty of pull off the line with the 3.08 gear set I was running at the time.
In the planning stage, I really wanted to use an original cast iron bellhousing with the tin cover on the bottom. Knowing these only come in the large flywheel 168 version, and “assuming” my TH350 used the smaller 153 tooth flexplate, I tried to save some money by not replacing the existing 153 tooth starter. This turned out to be a mistake when I later discovered the TH350 actually used the larger 168 tooth flywheel and starter. Had I done a thorough check, I could have actually saved money and used the preferred 2 piece bellhousing.
After ordering the 153 tooth flywheel, clutch, and bellhousing - I ended up having to replace the starter anyway! This was actually a blessing in disguise since the new starter is the preferred permanent magnet design. Much smaller and lighter (easier to install), it produces more torque and has been a fantastic upgrade.
The 3858403 one piece aluminum bellhousing was sourced from Ebay, as recommended by Novak as a confirmed compatible part number.
The slave cylinder kit was ordered from Novak Conversions:
They have subsequently changed the slave cylinder and bracket to a different design, but the version I have continues to work flawlessly. The folks at Novak have proven on several occasions to be very friendly, helpful and supportive. I would not hesitate to use or recommend them as a supplier.
Since I already had the Master Power Brakes power booster, master cylinder, and firewall plate, I contacted them to purchase the clutch master cylinder and bracket separately. This turned out to be a major disappointment and was subsequently scrapped.
It suffered from two major problems. 1. The bracket mounted the clutch master cylinder too low to provide the proper pedal ratio with the clutch pedal arm. Used as designed, the push rod bottomed out in the clutch master cylinder each time the pedal was depressed, risking the chance of fracturing the cylinder. 2. Also the bracket flexed during operation causing the clutch master cylinder to collide with the power brake booster.
I fabricated several designs of links attempting to correct the pedal ratio problem. Here’s one example. Ultimately I gave up on the entire design because the master cylinder bracket was just too flimsy for the design to be viable to my standards.
So I gave up and started searching for components to create my own design. I discovered Wilwood offered a master cylinder that would tuck right in behind the passenger side of the booster in perfect alignment with the original 1960 clutch operating lever. All that was needed was a new larger firewall plate to accommodate the new location. Since I wanted a larger custom shape, I simply sliced this up out of a chunk of 1/4" steel:
