kev

I did end up resolving this issue. Still haven't determined the exact root cause yet, only have it narrowed down at this point. First off, I kept going back to the injectors and decided to send all of my injectors out for testing/cleaning. Sent three sets and one additional primary that I located. Bad news was that one set both leaked externally and are junk, good news is that the rest are now fully functional. Although it didn't resolve my issue, which I kind of figured but I wanted to put it to bed. At least I have good spares ready to go for the future now. So, my attention switched to vacuum. I made a quick EGR block off plate out of sheet metal and sandwiched it between the EGR and manifold with the gasket on the manifold side, of course. I removed all un-needed vacuum lines for the EGR and the secondary air canister. Only keeping the vac advance, thermo swtich, and purge valve. Although, I pulled the purge valve port from the accordion hose, plugged the accordion hose, and routed the purge valve exhaust under the car to atmosphere. In all, this fixed the issue! It runs and drives great now at all rpms. Thus, I still don't have it ironed out fully for I'd like to pin-point it to the exact issue....but it is fixed. I'll run it like this for a few weeks for further confirmation. If all is good, I'll plug back in the purge valve port to the accordion hose...which I think will be fine based on the testing I did. I think the issue was with the EGR or the EGR solenoid. I kept getting vacuum on lines that I shouldn't have, even on idle. Rather than taking the time to diagnose everything in detail, I chose to fully isolate these systems and place them back in 1 by 1. But I don't really plan on restoring the EGR at the current time, for I don't have emissions testing in my area. I'll be making a better block off plate to remove it from the car entirely and have to get a few more vacuum plugs to eliminate the golf tees that I have plugging some of the lines to clean things up better. I figure that I'll worry about that EGR down the road if I do end up needing it.

The bearing inside wears with time. These PS pumps frustrate the heck out of me. I have the photos for the rebuild but I never put up a thread because the pump still leaked after rebuild...twice, even with a high end double lip seal. Then I had another one that didn't leak but wouldn't build pressure. For how simple these things are, they've given me so much grief.

Cool! Thanks for posting this. I have this on my list of things to do on my driver conquest. I keep putting it off because I tried years back to separate one of these lights and broke it in the process.

There are a few of us still around, here and on facebook. I was just near Albany, OR last week actually.

Here are some photos On the one side, you will see a small square 'dot'. This side has a lip and chamfer to accept the clip on the main shaft. This faces to the back of the pump, or 'out' as I have it marked for assembly. As seen, the other side doesn't have any chamfer or lip. So for assembly, put it on as follows: With the clip on, you have to push the pump impeller up and seat it into that lip/chamfer so it fits in there good. Because what happens is that the back cover of the pump pushes against the main shaft. See the recessed section in this photo that I have lubricated. So, if your impeller isn't seated in the clip properly or on backwards, when the back cover goes on, it pushes the shaft forward and mashes the impeller into the body. A little off-topic but when you install the vanes in the impeller, make sure they are facing the correct direction. There is a radius on one side (the right side in the photo below). This faces out in the impeller. I don't have a good shot of the bearing in the pump body but it is a sleeve bearing style with fluid passageway groove, etc. You can kind of see it under the seal in the photo below. This bearing wears with time and it doesn't take much to start a leak, even with a new seal. I don't have a source for a new bearing but something must exist because the Cardone rebuilt units have a new bearing installed. I still didn't believe it could be the bearing because I even tested the deflection per the 87 FSM and it came out in spec...but still leaked like made after rebuild. Tearing it a part up to three times with even polishing the shaft to practically a mirror and installing a double lipped oil seal (as shown below) still didn't fix the leak. This pump is still laying in a box in my workbench, years later. I found a Carbone rebuilt until and that is what is in the car now. Somewhere I have the ID measurements of the inner bearings between this pump and the rebuilt pump. I don't recall the values but we were talking around 1-2 thousands of a difference....the difference between leaking vs not.

It sounds like you put the pump wheel on backwards. There is a dot machined into it that indicates the direction. I believe it faces towards the back of the pump, if memory serves me correctly but the FSM states it. If it is on backwards, the clip will not push into the correct chamfer and when you put the back plate of the pump on, it will jamb up like it is doing for you. Also, if your front leak was pretty severe, a rebuild may not do the trick. I've found that the bearing wears with time and causes it to still leak with a new seal.

I have under $3k invested in MPI specifics on my one conquest. That’s all the G54B needs, a good MPI manifold and a stand alone MPI. I use SDS EMC. Some people shame it but it’s inexpensive and easily tunable.

ETACS has nothing to do with the engine electronics. Keep the factory main harness that runs through the LH side of the engine compartment and interior. The engine harness that runs on the RH side of the engine compartment is in-needed if you are swapping but you’ll need a few wires for your tach and starter. All of these Chevy and Toyota swaps lately, I don’t really understand the hype to be honest. But, I’ll keep my biased opinions to myself haha. Just please finish the swap and don’t let it become just another parts car in the years to come (which has been something I noticed to be a trend with cars that start down the ‘swap’ process).

Just to add a bit of a warning; the mechanical rocker arms on 83-84 cars need the proper rocker arms shafts associated with the mechanical rockers.

Yeah, I keep getting refills for the few sets of oem wipers I still have. It’s been difficult to find aftermarket wiper arms that actually fit good, well since forever. Even in the early 90s, they were hard to find. Even if they came with the pins, they never seemed to fit in the pin properly

Good to hear it is still around and still looking good. there was a member here years back with a light pastelish blue one who dumped tons of money into it. The member was in Delaware. He went silent and it turned up years later in a field, all rotted away, and ended up being a parts car. Was a shame to see. it’s always good to see these cars still running, especially the ones from prominent former members of these boards. Best of luck with it!

It looks to be in great shape. I don't see any rust there which is very unique for a car in New Jersey. Congrats! Look forward to hearing how you fix it up.

Posting a link to the thread in the Transmission Swap forum:

OK, well that took me a lot longer than I expected to put this together. Sorry that my photos are so bad, I think it is time to retire that old digital camera. But I think the write-up is very complete and all inclusive even with dark and fuzzy pictures. I'd like to add a few other minor things to this in the future such as the dimensions for the trans tunnel cutout (I know I have them and just misplaced them) and the 'manipulation' of the pedals to get them spaced where you would like in the end. But, as I said, I put enough time into making this thread for now and need a break haha. One thing I realized on this new site is that there is no longer a photo limit for a single post. This let me break the process out evenly in sections. Each post is a section. Read the title of each section and determine if you want to follow it or skip to the next. I'll open up the thread now and let others comment. Hopefully others will add photos on how they addressed the cross-member and other items of fabrication. I think areas could have been simplified even further but my goal was to make it as stock looking as possible. I'm not a fan of hacking things up just enough to make them work. Hope this helps others who go down this path. Kevin

Final Touches: Almost done. There are a few more items to address and the interior has to go back together of course. Going back to the engine compartment, hook up your heater core lines and vac booster And definitely don’t forget to plug the vacuum line in your manifold. The manual cars had a plug here that you could install but this would be the perfect place to connect a BOV. But for my car, I capped it for now. So now all that is left is the interior. I’ll post a few photos here but most of it is obvious and just a repeat of the disassembly. I’d recommend putting in the carpet first, then the kick-panels and dead pedal before the dash. It is just easier. Driver’s kick-panel Passenger kick-panel Dead pedal Next up is the dashboard installation which is covered by the following thread: And from here on out, you have the ETACS, lap belts on 87-89s, sill panels, and the seats. I think those are pretty obvious, so I will skip the photos. The last item is to swap the trim in the console. Remove the six screws And the radio side plates And the six screws on the radio trim plate Pop out the radio trim plate and then the shifter trim plate Set in the manual trim plate And put it all back together Pop in your shift boot It’s ready to go in Installing the shifter insulation first And follow along with the dash installation to install the console and shift knob You now have a manual transmission! There are a few items you may want to look into. Take a look at your pedals good. You may need to manipulate them a bit. I tweaked my gas pedal a bit but also bent the brake pedal a little over to the left because my foot kept clipping the brake when I was on the gas. They are pretty easy to bend. For the brake pedal, just connect vise grips to it and use a bar over them as a lever arm to bend it a bit (I'll try to put my setup back together, snap a picture, and add it here later). The gas pedal is bendable by hand. Other things you will need to do is to adjust your clutch engagement once you fire up the car and tighten your locknut on the clutch master cylinder clevis. Verify your reverse lights worth and your cruise control works. Obviously if the car started, your inhibitor switch is wired correctly. Well that is about it. Enjoy shifting gears!

Heater Core and Shifter Installation: Lay the original insulation back over the tunnel You will have to remove that console bracket and place it back on over the insulation Set the trim ring in position, mark and cut the insulation Now follow that line with about a ½” greater Cut it out Let’s install the heater core. I’m just going to show photos. It’s the same process as removal but in reverse. And now back to the shifter. Removing my tape. Put your transmission fluid in now. Loctite you bolts and install your gasket And install Use the same bolts that held down the automatic shifter to install the shifter ring

Wiring – Part 2: Now that the transmission is installed, we can finish the wiring. Let’s start with the most important wires, the reverse light switch. Plug the pigtail you got from the donor car onto the harness of the switch and run it along the frame-rail similar to stock configuration. Cut either your pigtail or the wire harness you made earlier to the desired length and solder/heat shrink it appropriately. Now, unplug that speedometer connection cable and remove the one that has been hanging there. Comparing the auto (left) to manual (right), now you can see the physical difference Here is the manual one ready to go Connect your speedometer And route the lines through the original clamps on the framerail. I did add one zip tie to keep everything neat Next up is the neutral safety switch wires that we will connect to our clutch switch. Locate the lines you ran through the firewall and connect them to the pigtail you got from the donor car that goes to the clutch switch. Route the lines how you desire and solder/heat shrink them together. Tuck them away While we are here, let’s put that insulation back on around the steering column While we are on the wiring subject, you will have these two wires that use to run to the console at the automatic shifter. These aren’t needed anymore. You can coil them up and zip tie them under the dash. If you used the manual pedal, you will also have the connectors that went to the auto pedal that can be tied back too. And install the spring on the brake lever while here.

Slave Cylinder Installation: Grab your parts for the slave cylinder. Temporary bolt it to the trans just to install the soft-line at the right position. Use your new crush washers on the banjo bolt. For bleeding, I like to unbolt it from the trans and use a C-clamp to hold the piston. Open the bleeder and put a hose on to a container. I like to let gravity do most of the work Fill her up with DOT-3 and let gravity do its work for a bit While that is going on, let’s get back in the car and connect the clutch master cylinder to the clutch pedal. Notice how I left the jam nut loose on the master cylinder clevis. That is so I can do a final adjustment later on. Now you can pump the pedal a few times to further bleed the system but the gravity trick did most of the work for us. Once you are happy with the bleeding, undo the c-clamp, install the boot and rod and put the slave cylinder onto the trans.

Transmission Installation: It’s time to install the manual. Make sure you clean everything up good and all of your metal work is properly coated, etc. The first thing is to install the flywheel. MAKE SURE YOU ARE USING THE PROPER MANUAL TRANSMISSION FLYWHEEL BOLTS. DO NOT USE THE AUTOMATIC FLEX-PLATE BOLTS!!!! There are actually two types of manual flywheel bolts as well. Not sure if this was a change in later years, but I have both types laying around. Ones that have a nylon patch in the threads and ones that do not. I used the ones that do but I still heavily employ the use of blue Loctite With your new pilot bearing installed in the flywheel, mount the flywheel onto the engine. Note, if you are using a 240mm flywheel, insert your dowel pin into the crank in that seventh hole that is slightly smaller than the others. I’m using a 225mm, so this isn’t an option. Hand thread in the bolts as much as you can. Snug tight with a normal ratchet Secure the flywheel for torqueing. This double-ended wrench works well with one of the trans bolts in the hole and one of the clutch bolts in place. Tip taken from Dad on here in the engine build thread that I have used consistently for years since learning it. And torque to spec using a star pattern - 94-101 ft-lbs. (I like to go in three steps) Once torqued, remove your wrench and bolts Wipe down the flywheel with brake cleaner, as well as the p/pl Loctite the six clutch bolts. Set the disk in place with the clutch alignment tool, then the p/pl and thread in the six bolts. Before you tighten them up, check your alignment tool, it should go in and out with ease. Then torque your bolts to spec and remove the alignment tool 11-15 ft-lbs Now install the transmission with your throw-out bearing in place, everything lubricated, etc. Start with the bottom two trans bolts…yes they are the same bolts used from the auto trans Reach up and get the top two bolts installed Loctiting all eight bolts for our new cross-member mount Bolt it on the cross member side with the locking plates in place and jack it up to final position And install the other bolts with locking plates in place Tighten them good and bend the locking plates to capture the hex heads of the bolts. Loctite the bolts for the inspection cover and that last bolt/nut between the trans and adapter plate Now, removing the tape and rag from the outlet cover that I put on earlier Hopping to the starter. Loctite those bolts too Hooking the battery cable to the starter and single wire to the solenoid Drag back your exhaust and rehang it I think I forgot to snap a photo or two of the driveshaft installation. Lubricate the yoke, couple it to the tranny and bolt it to the rear. Re-use the bolts from the auto driveshaft. Use Loctite and torque to spec.

Wiring – Part 1: There are two items that we have to address as far as wiring: 1. The reverse light switch 2. The neutral safety/starter inhibiter switch The reverse light switch is mandatory but the neutral safety switch is not. If you want the car to run, just connect the BR and BY wires together in the harness I discuss next. Although, if you do this, your cruise control will not work! See the same circuit is used for starter inhibitor as the cruise control. We will be feeding these wires to the switch on the clutch pedal. To start the car, the clutch will have to be depressed….which is standard on most manual cars but surprisingly not on ours. However, when using the cruise control, if you depress the clutch, the cruise control stops. So if you just wire the BR and BY wires together, the cruise control will think the clutch pedal is depressed and won’t work. So it is in your best interest to run the wires to the clutch pedal as described, unless you stripped out your cruise control system. In that case, connecting them together up at the plug is all you need. I’m a big fan of reusing as much OEM items as I can, so back to the original automatic transmission. You want the larger connector, 6 prong. I undid the insulation and clipped off the wires relatively long. The wires you want are; RL, R, BR, BY …That is red-blue, red, black-red, and black-yellow for those not as familiar with the notations in the FSM. Tape up starting at the connector Now go to the engine compartment and plug it back in to the original connector. This is near the brake vacuum booster connection on the firewall Run it down the firewall and tape up the harness. Note, my engine was out making this a little easier but you will have the room. I took advantage of the firewall plug with the cruise control cable coming through. There is a nub there that is easy to clip off and pass a harness through. You want to run the BR and BY wires into the car. I used the factory loom from the auto tranny on the remaining two running to the reverse light switch. Feed the RL and R wires down to the transmission area And that’s it for now. We will come back to these later once the transmission is in. The reason why is that we don’t want the lines too long or short.

Cross-member Modification: This section could potentially be skipped if you just choose to make the bars that I provided a drawing for in the beginning of this thread, but I’ll show you how I went about this and made them. What I did first is temporarily installed the manual trans to the block. I’m not putting the clutch on at this point, just getting it in place to design the cross-member setup. First off is to put back on the trans adapter plate, if you removed it earlier. Use Loctite on the bolts and torque to spec…9 ft-lbs. Now, I first sealed off the open parts of the transmission to prevent debris, etc. At this time, I wasn’t sure if I would be welding or cutting near the transmission or not. Now install the transmission to the block. And yes, I now have a true transmission jack. I picked up one in the middle of this project for I had to replace a clutch on a Jeep. I wasn’t willing to use my regular pole jack on a heavier trans with a transfer case on it, so in came this baby. And let me tell you, it was so worth it!!! It makes installing the transmission so much easier. Put it into position and install the lower two bolts – snug them up. Very easy here because the clutch isn’t on, so not too much to line up besides the flanges. Keep the jack under it to take your vertical measurements. I took two key measurements from the donor car. The first from the windshield lip to the top of the tranny and the second from the trans tunnel to the top of the tranny. The reason being is that I wanted to make sure the trans tunnel was not at a different elevation on an automatic vs a manual. I assumed they weren’t based on the dash/console, etc. but wanted to prove it. In reality, they are the same. Sorry this photo is so blurry but you want to grab from the sheet-metal on the pinch joint for the window and go to the transmission. You want 33-5/8”. The second measurement I took was from the top of the tunnel to the top of the trans; ½”. Which was a match. So leave your jack in that position and climb under. Install the factory trans mount and cross-member Now you can clearly see the different between the cross-member mounting on a manual vs automatic vehicle. It appears that the mounting flanges aren’t inline but they really are, just approximately 6-1/2” away. And the elevation difference is about 3/8”. So onto the creation of my cantilevered arms. With a tape measure, I decided on the 10” overall length. Cutting two bars to length with the 3/8” x 1” flat bar material Using one of the plates from the factory mount, I marked the center of the holes at one end of each bar Tossed them on my drill press using the same size T drill bit. Back to the car, bolting them up to the factory holes from the auto trans mount. And marking the holes from the installed cross-member For the forward holes, I wanted them tapped so I don’t have to mess with nuts on the opposite side. The proper size tap drill for a M8-1.25 bolt (factory size) is size H Back to the drill press using the size H and then to the vise for tapping to M8-1.25 Bolting it all back up Back to the top side to check my vertical measurement – SAT Here is a view showing the protrusion using the factory cross-member bolts into the cantilevered flat bar Now to tear it back down. I primed/painted the bars as shown earlier in the thread. Now, pull the trans back out so we can put the clutch back in. If I knew it would have been this easy, I would have put the clutch in first and left it all mounted up. But at this stage, I still needed to coat the trans tunnel work, etc.

Transmission Tunnel Modification: Be glad the pedal work is pretty much done. There are still a few things to button up under the dash but those will be done after the transmission tunnel is modified. This here isn’t rocket science, we are simply opening up the hole in the tunnel for the shifter. I even read that some have left the hole as-is and bolted the shifter in from underneath. I personally like to try my best to make it fit the original design, as much as possible. Thus, I open up the hole to be just like a stock manual car would be. Unfortunately, the tunnel is a bit different shape and it isn’t as easy as cutting out and welding in the section we cut from the donor car. There is some shaping we will have to do to the metal to get it right. Let’s get to it. Here is our starting point. Note that I have that bracket of which the center console screws to. If you remember earlier, I mentioned to install it back in after pulling away the trans. tunnel insulation. We will use that as our index to cut the hole. Tape it up so we can draw our new hole. We want to draw a line 2-13/16” from the edge of the console bracket. This is a measurement that I have taken from a donor car. And, I’ll be quite honest, you could be off probably as much as a ½” and it still will work fine…maybe even more. Here I have the donor piece laying overtop. Measure up 2-13/16” from the bracket and make your line. Trace out the pattern from the donor piece onto the tape. Note: I do remember jotting down the measurements of the trans hole (length, width, and corner radius) but I can't seem to locate these notes. If and when I find them, I'll add them to this write-up. To make it easier, flip over the donor section and it is easy to trace out And simply cut it out using a grinding wheel. Take note of the top edge, there are two layers of steel there that are separated by about ½”. You will have to cut through both. Remove the tape. Now, back to the donor section. I decided that all I will use is the bolt plate that is tack welded to the body via the four spots. I ground these and drilled them out using a spot-weld cutter. Your hole is cut but we have to deal with that top area with the separation. I used a hammer and dolly to massage this flat and then clamp the bolt plate to the underside of the tunnel Mark the bolt holes from the clamp plate from the underside. Remove the clamp plate and drill the holes, that siize T bit you used earlier on the firewall works good for this. Then I added a few 1/4” holes around the perimeter just to weld up the clamp plate. Once the holes are in, clamp it back up And then weld up the 1/4” holes to secure the plate to the tunnel. I should have noted earlier that the bolt holes with the narrower pattern go towards the front of the vehicle (take note to the window and mirror seen through the hole) Grinding my welds smooth and doing a little more work with the hammer/dolly to get it to look better. Note the hole pattern. The front of the car is to the right. Test fitting the clamp plate…SAT With a little further cleaning up and hammer work, it looks pretty good. I think I forgot to take a few good photos of the final look after painting but you’ll see them some down the line in other photos in the thread but I ran seam sealer around the lip of the bolt plate that I welded on underneath and then primed/painted all the bare metal.

Clutch Hydraulics Installation: There still are a few items to button up under the dash area but let’s hop to the clutch hydraulics. This is fairly simply once you route the clutch hardline in position. But here is where we want to install the clutch master cylinder, clutch hardline with bracket, and clutch soft-line with bracket. We won’t yet install the slave cylinder, it is best to wait until the transmission is in for that. The first priority is to fish the hardline down in position. You have to start at the top and get it under the brake booster and go from there. This is very hard to describe via photos. It just takes some thought and careful motion of fishing it down in place. Don’t bend the line inadvertently. Fish it down from the top. That other line you see there is actually a abs bypass line a former owner put in that was very much in the way but I didn’t want to have to undo it, so I worked around it. The red wire looks like it is in the way but it wasn’t, again that was something I added for an ignition switch modification. You won’t have to deal with those two items. Fuzzy photo but it shows a little better For me, the hardest part was getting it behind this fuel vent line near the bottom. Once you get it about in position, there are a few things to do. First is to install the soft-line bracket. There are two bolts on the frame rail that hold on an electrical cable running back to the trans area. Remove these and put the bracket underneath the cable bracket. Keep the bolts loose for now to aide in coupling the hardline to the soft-line in a few minutes Now remove the bolt holding the proportioning valve for the brakes Wrap the hardline support bracket around the hardline and secure it to the bolt hole in the proportioning valve. Sorry, another fuzzy pic Now install the hardline into the softline and snug it a little. Now, back to the top. Install the clutch master cylinder. Note the original gasket I reused. Put it in position and use the C style bracket to slide over the stud and go through the lower firewall hole. Thread the nut on loosely. The hardline should be in the position you expect it to be, if you didn’t bend the line all up fishing it into position. Now go to the inside of the car and install the nut on that lower stud. There is a slot in the clutch bracket that gives clearance to it. Use a bunch of extensions on your ratchet to make it easy on you. Once that nut is tight, go back to the engine compartment and tighten the top one Now start the threads on the hardline into the cylinder. and tighten in. Go back to the one below and tighten it up too And tighten the bolts on the bracket Last thing to do in this section is the reservoir. I quickly figured out that my aftermarket slave cylinder had the wrong cap on it for our cars. The outlet was too large. Luckily I had a spare used cylinder assembly that I stole the cap from. But regardless, you may have to ‘clock’ the cap accordingly. So I loosened the clamp, installed the proper cap and rotated it a bit. Leave the clamp loose so you can turn it accordingly. Next, bring the brake reservoir back over into position and mount the clutch reservoir to it. Leave your bolts loose and just set everything in position. Clock the cap on the master cylinder and the clutch reservoir so they are aligned. Now pull away the brake reservoir and tighten the clamp on your cap. Next, I installed the hose and its clamps to the clutch reservoir. And now bring the brake reservoir back over and install the bolts into the body and install the bolt for the reservoir. If you are happy with the positioning, tighten everything up. Put the clutch reservoir cap on for now to prevent any debris from entering That’s it for now. We will put on the slave cylinder, fill it with fluid, and bleed after the trans is in.

Pedal Installation: We finally made it to the enjoyable part, in my opinion. Everything prior to this was simply to access the locations to modify in order to start installing the manual transmission components. A high-level overview of what will be covered in this section is: · Firewall modification – 3 holes for clutch master cylinder · Cowl modification – attachment of the clutch pedal mounting bracket to the underside of the cowl · Clutch pedal assembly installation · Brake pedal installation · Gas pedal installation and/or ‘modification’ Firewall Modification: Picking up where we left off from the previous section; Look up and see the grommet running through the firewall. This is the index for the holes we need to install to the left of it. I popped the grommet out but keep in mind that it is a pain to put back in later on. It’s up to you. If you can index the hole via the template with it in, leave it in. We have one last item to partially remove before we start getting into the template and drilling holes. This would be the brake master cylinder reservoir. Remove the two bolts securing it to the body. 12mm head. And simply move it out of the way. Make sure your cap is on secure so that brake fluid doesn’t leak out. I manipulated it a bit more since this photo so it laid horizontal. So, if you notice, you can see that the three holes exist there on the outer layer of the firewall but have been seam sealed over from the factory. The firewall is two layers in this location, of which the outer layer has the clutch master cylinder mounting holes but the inner does not. I guess if you had a very small right angle drill or even die grinder, you could potentially drill it from the engine compartment side and match these holes….although I couldn’t get even my small 90 degree pneumatic die grinder in there. This means we have to drill from the interior side. The challenge is to mark these holes from the interior side, blind side, and hopefully they match the holes on the engine compartment side…or be fairly close. From here, you want to make a template as shown in the beginning of this thread. I actually made two templates, the first one with the three holes not cut out but a small hole in the hole centerlines and the second with the holes cut out. The first one is simply to mark the hole centerlines for initial drilling. Take your time here, you want to get it in place with the index hole (that being the hole in the firewall with the harness running through it) centered well. Also, this index hole doesn’t control angular orientation. Use a small level to verify that the clutch master cylinder hole pattern is plumb to the car (assuming your car is in a level condition on its jack-stands). I used tape to hold the template in place. This photo makes it look like the index hole is out of position but that is the optical illusion of the harness. It actually is spot on. I didn’t photo the next part due to the tight area and not enough hands to handle the camera and drill but I first used a small pilot bit to drill the three holes at the centerline. Something like an 1/8” or even less is perfect. Drill right through the centerlines scribed in your template. From there you can remove the template and we might as well drill the holes for the mounting bolts. These are essentially 9mm holes for the 8mm fasteners. A ‘T’ size drill bit (.356”) is perfect but a step up or down would work as well. They are clearance holes, they don’t need to be super high precision. Go ahead and drill these two holes with the T size drill. Here is what you should have now Now let’s look back on the engine compartment side and see how well we did….not bad! Very close to being spot on! Ok, so now we have to drill the larger hole. If you have some good hole saws, you may be able to drill it out in one shot but I doubt you would have the proper size for this metric hole. What I did was use the largest drill bit I had and then grind it out to size. Starting with opening that center hole up with a large drill bit. Here it is on the eng comp. side…still looking good. Now I taped on my second template. As seen, this one is pretty crude and doesn’t need the index hole. It is just to give me a reference on how much I need to open the hole up to. Backing the camera up shows what you have to be working through. It’s tight but fully doable. I used a standard cordless drill up to this point. Now I used my right angle pneumatic die grinder with a grinding bit on it and ground it to the diameter I wanted per the template. This makes a mess but grinds it like butter. Again, taking a look on the engine compartment side. Also, I put some touch up on the exposed steel This method worked very well but the negative is that I had grinding dust everywhere. So this is where I stopped and grabbed the shop vacuum and cleaned everything up. Clutch Pedal Mounting Bracket: So now, take your clutch pedal assembly and bolt on the mounting bracket that was drilled out from the donor car. There is an orientation to it, note the photo in the beginning of this thread where I had ‘firewall’ marked to indicate the orientation. Mount it to the clutch pedal assembly in the correct position. Leave the bolts just snug enough in the slots that you can manipulate it around for final position. Now take the assembly and get it up into place. The threaded stud will run through the top hole that we drilled in the firewall. And run a nut on this stud to hole it in place Looking from the engine compartment side, make sure the clutch bracket holes line up well with the drilled holes in the firewall and tighten that nut good to hold it in position Now go back to the interior and look at where your bracket lies. As seen, it matches the contour of the underside of the cowl pretty well. You have some wiggle room for adjustment with the slotted holes and there is a little bit of flex in the bracket. Get it to about where you think it will go and use a sharpie to mark the size drilled holes in the bracket. It doesn’t have to be perfect at this stage, we are just marking the locations to prep for welding. Now, remove the nut and pull the whole assembly back out. Looking up at the cowl, you should clearly see your marks. Take these areas down to bare metal in preparation for welding and clean up your drilled holes in the bracket. You can use weld through primer if you want, I didn’t think that was too necessary in this location though. Now bolt the bracket back up to the clutch pedal and reinstall it. Put your nut back on the stud and take your time to get everything lined up. Get the bracket right where you want it. It needs to be in good contact with the cowl for welding. I used a scissors jack to put some upward pressure on the pedal assembly. The back side of the bracket was nice and tight but as seen here, the front side was still hanging down just a tad. I used a welding clamp to squeeze it a bit which pulling it tight to the cowl So now it is time to weld. This isn’t my best weld job but I purposely had the welder dialed down a bit. I wanted the welds to be a bit on the cold side because I didn’t want to blow a hole through the cowl. I don’t want to open up any water leaks to the interior of the car. So wrestle yourself in there and tack up each hole. Don’t have to weld it fully at this point. Tack it and then pull out the clutch pedal to gain more room for final welding. Now weld it up….yes, my welds are ugly…I know. Clean them up with a wire brush and spraying a little primer/paint up there. You can see the bracket in this panned back photo Pedal Installation: Now it is time to start putting things together. First off, I noticed just with handling the clutch pedal assembly that the plastic bumper that is used for the clutch disengagement switch disintegrated. These leaves a hole in the pedal and renders the switch useless. I’ll talk about it later but this switch is very important in an auto-manual swap. We will be using this switch to replace the neutral safety switch from the automatic. So I simply installed a bolt/nut in place of the plastic bumper that disintegrated. To start the installation process, lay back your firewall pad It’s hard to see here but it goes over the clutch pedal bracket and firewall holes nicely Now, install the new brake pedal to the brake pedal bracket. Note that we are doing this prior to putting the clutch pedal back in, for space reasons. It goes on the same way the automatic brake pedal came off. If you do this before bolting up the brake pedal bracket, it gives you more room Now reassemble your brake mounting bracket. The hardest bolt to install is the one that goes up vertically. Start there. And then put the washers/nuts on the power booster studs. Make sure the clevis goes around the pedal And re-pin your brake pedal. Clevis pin, washer, and cotter pin. If you disconnected the brake light switch, like I did, connect it back in And bolt back up your steering column….wow, I really have very poor photos of removing and installing that steering column! Restore the restraints on your main wiring harness And now, bolt in your clutch pedal assembly. Oh, if you popped out the grommet for the index hole when you drilled the holes in the firewall, don't forget to put it back in....yes, it is a pain to get those grommets back on! There is a wire clamp on the clutch assembly (you can see it in my photos in the beginning of this thread). This goes around the harness. Put this is place. So now, backing up to look at what we got. Note that the gas pedal is so close to the brake pedal. This is why I chose to use the gas pedal out of the manual car. To remove the gas pedal, you unfortunately have to pull the pedal from the bracket because you can’t get a socket on the lower bolt with it on. And now unbolt the bracket. I had a photo of this but it is so fuzzy. Not really needed, two 12mm head bolts and it comes out. Unhook the cables and pull it out. There are a few wire connections that need to be unplugged, these will not be needed anymore. Replace it with the manual pedal. That looks a lot better! But you could always just bend the automatic gas pedal a bit to give you clearance. I later did bend this pedal a little farther away from the trans tunnel once I had the interior back together. The one is too close to the brake and the other is too close to the tunnel.

It looks incredible! Great job!