[72cs20]

Update for this week.

I worked on making holes in the transmission cover for the all the levers. The cover is new from LMC. It is well made but will require the grinding wheel in a couple of areas for proper fit. I'll show that coming up soon.

Making holes for the transmission and overdrive shift levers were pretty straight forward. The hole for the twin stick t-case shifter is way more complicated for a fabrication novice such as myself.

First off, I am not using the cable operated shifter mentioned in an earlier post. I couldn't make it work with this truck. I ended up going with ORD's (Off Road Design) twin stick shifters that use rods and heim joints. The ORD shift levers are at least twice as tall than the one's for the cable shifters. They look more old school, kinda like you would see in an Napco truck. I did use the nobs from the cable shifters on the ORD levers because they have the shift patterns on the knobs themselves. ORD only gives generic round knobs and a sticker to show shift pattern.

There isn't enough room on the trans cover for the twin sticks to mount flat on the cover. My mock up was to make a flat extension off to the passenger side of the cover using some sheet metal. The man that is going to do my exhaust is also a talented sheet metal fabricator, and he can definitely work off this idea.

I also changed out the throttle linkage rod. I was temporarily using the stock V8 dog leg rod. Finally got a proper straight rod and swivel joints. Nice and smooth now.