3speed to Nv 3500 swap

[ta2ed]

Alright after a lot of research and reading on here I decided to swap out my old 3speed for a 5 speed. Where I live there's a welding shop and the owner is a real fine fellow and has helped
Me out tremendously. I'll start off with the donor truck a 93 c1500 4.3/5spd.
I traded my 3spd and bell housing linkage and everything
That goes with it for everything I needed for the swap,trans,pedal, master cyl,slave cyl, line and all.
I started by measuring the distance from the hole in the clutch arm to the actual master cylinder, then compared it to what it would be on the truck to see if I could use my existing pedal. According to my measurements it looked like it would work with a little fabrication . Which consisted of lengthening the clutch rod about 1 inch.
I then ground the weld off of the 93 clutch arm and knocked the pin that the pushrod mounts to off. Measured the holes on the arm which from center to center were 2.5 inches down from the pivot for the arm. So I drilled and welded that on then installed the arm back on the truck. I took a pushrod held it up level at the pin for the mc pushrod to where it hit the firewall andarked it to drill a pilot hole for the m/c . After drilling pilot I grabbed the m/c and sized it up to the appropriate hole saw them used gasket to mark mounting holes. All worked out other than having to relocate horn relay which in no biggie. Mounted the m/c then clipped pushrod onto clutch arm. Was about an inch short,so I used a pushrod out of an old small block to stick in the end of m/c and marked the 2 where they intersected,cut and welded them together. The rest of tranny install was text book, until it came to drive shaft and mount. No shortening of the shaft was needed as both granny's were same length. The only thing I had to do was use the 5spd yolk with an adapter I joint I bought from napa ,worked perfect! Now for the trans mount I had a crossmember out of a frame that I had traded for (68) worked good…other than it sat too high to use the mount not the best setup here but I removed the mount and used the holes to bolt trans
With a 3/4" thick rubber cushion between to the crossmember. It works for now but I will be revisiting that setup later as this is my dd. when I figure out how to post pics from my phone I will throw some up here.
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[midniteblues]

do you have any pic's? how does the stick sit in the cab?this swap sounds very intresting

[ta2ed]

I do have pics but my ignorance is standing in the way of posting them....lol
Actually I also cut the 5speed shifter off and welded a granny gear 4 SPF shifter to it to try to make it look fairly correct. Shifter sits great inside the truck barely touches the front of the seat in reverse. Also is very comfortable driving.
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[ta2ed]

cid:51B27B80-54BE-4CFC-B864-C0522E3AEB03
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[ole dollor]

ta2ed: your pic deal did not work on my puter......can you send them another way....

[ta2ed]

I could email them to you. I just don't think I can upload them from my phone and don't have a pc
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[odog]

im interested in this too, I would love to see pics.

[ole dollor]

odog:you were looking for tow hooks...i saw some in l.m.c catalog today if that is the kind you are looking for...

ta2ed: i can pm you on my email address if that would help....

[1972RedNeck]

Originally Posted by ole dollor

odog:you were looking for tow hooks...i saw some in l.m.c catalog today if that is the kind you are looking for...

Those are just the cheap add on kind. Factory tow hooks are hard to come by.

[Beuford]

I'm running a NV3500 and the shifter comes up thru the factory 4 spd hole in a high hump perfectly.

[TchncnDen]

Hi Frank, glad you got a thread going. Since threads are always better with pics you can email them to me and I'll post them up for you. What did you end up doing to get the slave cylinder bled?

[ta2ed]

hey Brian I actually ended up pulling the slave cylinder back off removed the hose filled it up with fluid and had a buddy of mine fill m/c up then when it was flowing good from the hose reattached it to the s/s. pumped the clutch 3 or 4 times and there it was. all is good now.

[502ms]

I was researching this a few weeks ago...is the nv3500 strong enough for a higher powered 350/383? I think I saw the nv4500 was better? Not a poke, but more for clarification. What is your overall satisfaction with this swap? I definitely am interested in knowing if this is the right move in my truck
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[ta2ed]

Hey Leon,
If you have any power you may want to go with the 4500.
I am not running any "power" I built this truck for daily driving. I drive anywhere from 30 to 150 miles a day. Soooooo (don't laugh) I dropped a 262 out of a 75 monza, a 308 gear (68) and the final piece 5speed out of a 93 c1500. I am very satisfied with it....considering I get 20 plus miles to the gallon in my old 69. The fuel injection helps out too with mileage and helps the power out a little bit also. Other mods include power disc brakes (76 c10) with 6 lug rotors from ccp. Also front sway bar also from 76 model. Still working on a speedometer for it current using my gps. I was hittin 80 mph on my way from 1 job to the next this morning and was only running 2000 rpm's before with the 3speed 65 was closer to 3 k. I sent some pics to another member he said he'd get them on here for me.
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[ta2ed]

Oh glad to see you got your bed. Have you got it on yet?
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[TchncnDen]

Here are the pics of the clutch install, I'll let Ta2ed add the captions to them.

[TchncnDen]

And a couple more..............

[ta2ed]

1st off thanks for posting the pics man sorry to bug you with that. Ok in the 1st pic are the clutch pedals 1 on left is out of my 69 1 on right is 93. I measured distance from pivot to get the hole drilled to weld the pin in. For the record it was 2.5 inches.
2nd pic is where I drilled the hole for the m/c of to the left of clutch pedal and level with the hole drilled in the clutch pedal arm.
3rd pic is the clutch rod lengthened approximately 1.25" .
4th pic is placement of the shifter...I couldn't have asked for better!
5th pic is of m/c bolted in place. It tucked in nicely behind the brake
Booster and almost looks factory. If needed I can try to get better pics.
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[odog]

Originally Posted by ole dollor

odog:you were looking for tow hooks...i saw some in l.m.c catalog today if that is the kind you are looking for...

ta2ed: i can pm you on my email address if that would help....

Ole dollor, thank you, but I found a factory set, took awhile, but I found them.

[ole dollor]

odog: man that's great....i guess they are hard to find , and you finally found a pair....that's great.....i don't need any ,but if i run across a set i will post the find for others....

[502ms]

I totally forgot I asked you about this swap ta2ed!
What is your overall satisfaction now?

Yes - I got the bed on there...lots of pics posted and videos on YouTube...check my signature for it

[hugger6933]

A couple of post up someone asked about bleeding the slave cylinder, it can be a booger bear on this type of deal it will never bleed out the regular way completely. The best way I've found is to get an old type oil can[squirt type] and fill with brake fluid and go under the truck crcrack open the bleeder screw and place a piece of hose on the nozzle of the oil can and the bleeder, then pump away. That should push all of the air out look for air bubbles in the slave cylinder, when it stops bubbling it is completly bleed out. If this process is not working quickly ,have a helper push in onthe clutch pedal while pumping up the slave cylinder, that usally will do it for sure. The same thing goes about the bubbles in ether case when they stop your done. Jim

[ta2ed]

If I had to do it allover again, I WOULD! I love it the truck drives nice and smooth and shifts great.. The hydraulic clutch works so much nicer tha the old linkage clutch. It takes nowhere near as much effort to push the pedal in ( I have a bad knee) plus there's not really much to doing the swap. I'd do it again in a heartbeat
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[CSGAS]

I was under the impression that, the first time I read this thread, there was a hydraulic throwout bearing in use instead of a slave cylinder...now that it's been revived obviously I misremembered

Did different (later) models come with one? Or could I maybe have read of someone combining parts (F-body is nagging me) on another thread or another board that sounds familiar to someone?

Also, ta2ed, I wanna make sure I really understood this right even though it's seems hard to read it any other way--the NV3500 is the same length as the Saginaw 3-speed? With NO mods to the driveshaft (just a conversion u-joint)? That could seal the deal on my own decision...I could do a swap like that on the side of a road somewhere! OK, I exaggerate a little, but at least it isn't a foot longer and a hundred pounds heavier than the tranny it replaces

[ta2ed]

You read it right. Same length as Saginaw. You do have to use the yoke from the nv3500 and will have to modify your crossmember as the 3500 is taller in the tail shaft area. The conversion joint will allow the use of the nv yoke on factory driveshaft though. After initial install its a 45 minute job to swap trannys. Piece of cake so to speak. I used factory type master & slave cylinders. They're kind of a ***** to bleed out bout it's definitely worth it. With a 308 gear I get around 26mpg
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