Jan 29th.

Parts List for new transmission

I ordered all my parts the other day and it turns out the transmission is backordered for about two weeks but should be here on Jan. 30th. if everything goes well. Hurst Driveline has a great program which makes it easy to find the kit that works best for you. They sell three different ones which are; basic, deluxe and elite kits. I went with the elite kit because it had almost everything I needed which includes the following parts:

• Tremec 5 speed trans with your choice of gear ratio
• Speedometer cable for mechanical setups or wiring for electric setups
• Reverse light switch
• Transmission mount (Energy Suspension)
• Needle roller pilot bearing
• Hardware kit (Grade 8 bolts)
• Driveshaft (Inland Empire Driveline)
• Hydraulic release bearing (RAM)
• Shifter knob (Hurst)
• Aluminum bellhousing
• Flywheel (Cast)
• Heavy duty clutch (supports up to 425 hp)
• Detailed instructions
   

Now you have your choice of optional components that you can add if you'd like which is something I did. First upgrade was the driveshaft. The one that comes with the kit is a 3" steel one but I upgraded to a 3 1/2" aluminum unit. Second upgrade was the aluminum bellhousing. I upgraded to a steel scatter shield made by Quicktime. This is something that I wouldn't live without because if your clutch or worse yet a flywheel comes apart, more then likely it's going right through that aluminum piece and through the floor of the car. The third upgrade was the clutch. I upgraded to a twin disc unit made by McLeod. The fourth upgrade was the flywheel. The flywheel they provide is cast steel which is something I don't want either and after asking them if they could get the one I wanted they told me no. But the good news is they would credit me back for the cost of the original flywheel. Now how great is that? Pretty cool people to do business with I'll have to say. Now I wait...........

While I've been waiting for all those parts to arrive I've been trying to keep busy with other tasks. What I needed to do next is remove all the wiring for controlling the old transmission and I've been dreading this because of how I built the car. Let me explain... when you build a racecar you make it easy to work on but when you build a street rod you make it as clean as possible. Here is what I mean about the term 'clean as possible'. One thing that comes to mind is hiding fasteners so you're not able to see how something is attached or in this case hiding most of the wiring so you don't see any clusters of wires. But when you do hide something, it can make it very difficult to work on.

I had to remove the center console and drivers side kick panel to get at most of the wiring and after they were out of the way, this is what it looked like. I had forgotten how many wires were under the console...wow! Removing the computer was a snap because there were only two plugs that screwed into it (one of them is visible at the bottom left). Now getting to all that wiring that went to those plugs was going to be a different story because some of them ran all the way across the underside of the dash. That's not so bad but when they are all inside that purple wire wrap, along with lots of clamps holding them in place and with some of those clamps very hard to get at, it's a different story. After laying on my back in all sorts of weird positions getting at all those wires, I got them all disconnected and now they're ready to pass through the floor.

Something else that has been bugging me for awhile now is the gap in the carpet next to the center console. Over the past few years this gap has been getting larger because my foot slides around right there while I work the throttle but the only way to fix it properly would be to remove the center console. So again I took this opportunity while nothing was in the way and fixed it. All I had to do was remove the old carpet tape and replace it with some new stuff but this time I made the length of the tape longer for each piece. And I added a couple more just for good measure so I hope that does the trick.
 

Thinking back I believe I ran this wire at the beginning of the build and then added more wires along the way. After moving things around and trying a few times to gain enough room, there was no way that plug was going back the way it came without removing some of the others. Remember that dreading part I was talking about...well here it is.

The solid black line is for my transmission temp gage so that was one line that was easy to remove but because it's small it didn't make much difference. By removing some of the purple wrap from some of the others I was able to slip the plug through but replacing the wrap was a big pain. I kept telling myself, it's all for the good of the new trans so deal with it.
 

The larger of the two wire wraps on top had five wires in it, two that go to the alternator and the remaining that went to the throttle position sensor (TPS). The TPS is part of the automatic transmission control that talks with the computer and it was removed too. With the three extra wires gone now I was able to reduce the size of the purple wrap going to the alternator. If you look close you can see where I spliced it under the brake pedal but that area will be hidden once everything is finished. I also removed the brake pedal and the push-rod that goes to the master cylinder once I had the wiring sorted out.
 

Now that I don't have any trans cooling lines going to my radiator, I needed to cap off those two fittings. The blue rag under them is catching the last of the dripping trans fluid.
 

One of the first things I bought were these Earls -6 caps to cover the openings in the radiator.
 

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28 

29  30  31  32  33  34  35  36  37  38  39  40  41  42  43  44  45  46  47  48  49  50  51  52  53

54  55  56  57  58  59  60  61  62  63