BUILD THREAD The Camel - June24 - Dual Exhaust & Floor Shifter

[81camel]

Replaced the rear lower control arms today with UMI tubular non-adjustable ones. Now my sway bar is mounted a lot better.
Managed to hit myself in the head pretty hard with my torque wrench so that wasn't so fun.

Also got the B&M Hammer shifter. Planning to design a center console over winter so getting the shifter now will help with that.

 

[SS_Malibu]

Just read through your thread. It's nice to see another Gbody getting brought back to life.
Regarding getting hit in the head with the torque wrench, it will feel a lot better once it quits hurting.
The car is looking good! Keep it up!

 

[ssn696]

Fishing expedition: it looks like you have a tilt automatic trans steering column retrofitted into the Camel, with the shift arm removed. While it's likely you inherited the car with this swap already done, if you had the manual tilt column, I'd be interested in it.

 

[81camel]

Fishing expedition: it looks like you have a tilt automatic trans steering column retrofitted into the Camel, with the shift arm removed. While it's likely you inherited the car with this swap already done, if you had the manual tilt column, I'd be interested in it.

Yeah. When my dad bought the car 25ish years ago, it was a manual 3 speed. He converted it to automatic column shift. He didn't keep the original column 😥 I wish he had because I plan to convert it back to floor shift and the key release lever would have been handy.

 

[81camel]

Got around to doing some more work on the car this spring.
My dad is retired so had some free time to weld up new seat mounts for me. Dropped the seats about 2-3 inches. Much more comfortable position now.


I ordered the Holley Blackheart Exhaust kit a few months ago when it was on a sale and this weekend we started installing it.

The kit is crossmember back and Holley only makes downpipes for LS swap. So I got some downpipes from Pypes that fit the manifolds on my 350. Have to cut them down and reweld a little bit and then they should fit pretty decent. Might not be as good alignment as it would be with an LS swap and all the proper parts, but I'm not modifying the Holley kit so that in the future when I do the LS swap, then I can get the proper fitted parts.

The Summit Crossmember went in really well, but found out we needed to replace the transmission mount as the existing one used a single bolt which wasn't supported by the crossmember. Waiting on my rockauto order for that.

Hoping in 2-3 weeks we'll be back on the road. It's been fun taking my wife and 2yo daughter our for a cruise and then playing at the park on the weekends.

After this is done, I'll be pausing any work on it for a year or two. We're in the planning stage of building a new house (with shop), so don't want to start anything too big at the moment.


attached a few pics of the exhaust parts, will post more of them installed yet.

 

[81camel]

Just about got the whole exhaust in place. Downpipes were cut and rewelded, but found the angle on the passenger side was just slightly off so going to get that adjusted.
Clearance between exhaust and floor pan is very tight in a few areas may have to push up the floor a bit. Not sure if heat is really a concern or not.
Any suggestions on that?

If I had gone with 2.5" I think I would have a lot less problems.



Floor shifter is proving to be a bit of a pain. Got it mounted and with the cable looped around the way B&M says to, the shifter and cable move easily when the cable isn't hooked on the selector level on the transmission. As soon as its on that lever, the shifter is really hard to change gears. I dont really think its the cable, but maybe it is? Just seems weird.

I did find some examples of other people having a hard shifting for a while and then it frees up. Hopefully that will be the case here.

Any suggestions on things I could check on to make it better? I'm going to mess with it a bit more and if I can't get it better I'll post some pics.

 

[SS_Malibu]

There should be some instructions in the shifter kit. You need to follow those exactly as it says. Sometime it takes a bit to dial in the cable but it will dial in providing you have the correct shifter for the transmission. I have a TH400 with the Quicksilver shifter.

The cable should be coming straight out of the shifter and through the floor (No Kinks) then curve around to the passenger side, around the the top the tail of the trans and around to the shift lever. You will need to be sure you are using the correct mounting bracket and shift lever bracket. I think (if memory serves correct) you start with the trans in low, making sure the little round piece slips into the shift lever bracket then move to park. Then move to each gear making adjustments back down to low. keep doing this until it slips into the shift lever hole fairly smoothly in every gear.

I've use B&M shifters ever since ever. I've been so happy with them, it's all I've ever used. I stick with what works.

I hope this helps. PM me if you need any additional help.

Edit: I just noticed. If you are using a 4L80e trans your shifter needs to accommodate the 4 speed automatic. I'm guessing you have figured that in and removed the additional pin to accommodate.

 

[81camel]

There should be some instructions in the shifter kit. You need to follow those exactly as it says. Sometime it takes a bit to dial in the cable but it will dial in providing you have the correct shifter for the transmission. I have a TH400 with the Quicksilver shifter.

The cable should be coming straight out of the shifter and through the floor (No Kinks) then curve around to the passenger side, around the the top the tail of the trans and around to the shift lever. You will need to be sure you are using the correct mounting bracket and shift lever bracket. I think (if memory serves correct) you start with the trans in low, making sure the little round piece slips into the shift lever bracket then move to park. Then move to each gear making adjustments back down to low. keep doing this until it slips into the shift lever hole fairly smoothly in every gear.

I've use B&M shifters ever since ever. I've been so happy with them, it's all I've ever used. I stick with what works.

I hope this helps. PM me if you need any additional help.

Edit: I just noticed. If you are using a 4L80e trans your shifter needs to accommodate the 4 speed automatic. I'm guessing you have figured that in and removed the additional pin to accommodate.

Thanks. We got it working well now.
Did a little adjustment on how the cable was routed but the biggest difference was the little swivel thing that goes into the lever. Turned it on turn and now things are smooth!

It still skips over neutral and goes right to drive when trying to go from reverse to neutral but I realized that is the transmission because when move the transmission lever with my hand it does the same thing.

 

[81camel]

Forgot to add. We're just making a heat shield to protect the shifter cable from exhaust.

Now only things left are the passenger downpipe is getting adjusted by our welder and I need to get more clearance between power steering pump pulley and the steering box. (Pic attached)
Kinda wish I went with rubber trans mount...

We thought lower profile bolt heads would be enough but it wasn't. Now looking at either a smaller pulley or shim up the engine mount on driver's side by 1/4".

 

[SS_Malibu]

Good to hear.
And yeah, shifter cables don’t dig exhaust pipe all that well.