More of what I like to loosely call progress photos coming in here... Here's the inside and under the dash look at the brake booster and pedal****embly install... (additional bracing has since been added)
To use just the brake pedal from the 80s S10 donor****embly, I had to divide and conquer... That largest hole at the top is where the bolt for the brake pedal cross shaft goes through. The two smaller holes on either side of that one were SPOT WELDS that had to be drilled out...and then there were three Nearly Indestructable rivets to deal with on the back slope. Ended up with a brake pedal****embly compact enough to fit under the 49 Chevy dash, and a clutch pedal****embly that can be adapted to some other car where a hydraulic clutch may be wanted.
Hey now, dont be too quick to diss your shifter... Would you mind drawing up a diagram and posting it? I'd kinda like to make a tall floor shifter for my truck with the th350... I know they're so simple, thats why I cant bring myself to fork over $50 for a mr gasket to cut up... later, J
The shifter is dead simple, Burndup... Just a detent-operated inline deal. The base and handle are made from lightweight but very strong aluminum stock. The mounting tabs are galvanized steel, and the hardware is****orted coarse thread stuff with a couple of my trademark chrome acorn nuts tossed in to add some sparkle! The handle part is a piece of a bicycle handlebar...I was gonna slip a glittery Stingray handgrip over it when done! To finish it up and install it, you'd need a hole in the floor for the arm to stick through, four mounting holes, and something to connect the arm to the******* with once the arm is bent to shape and trimmed to size. Kugel Komponents makes a sweet shift arm and linkage kit that would hook up to this shifter perfectly...and that's what I woulda used! Making one with a tall handle would be a breeze...but if the handle got too heavy, it may tend to bump itself in and out of gear positions! I got some 3/8" aluminum rod laying around that I could make a tall, yet light shift arm out of to substitute for the gay flat-stock arm you see here!
Awright...for those of you playing along at home...here's a shot that gives you a peek at one of the braces I had to incorporate into the brake pedal bracket to keep flex to a minumum. It's made from 1/4" diameter steel rod bent at each end and run straight between the bracket for the pedal****embly and the bottom of the dash. I threaded an inch or so of each end to allow the use of two 1/4"-20 nuts. Not the greatest pic, but you get the idea. The other brace (not visible here) runs down from the other side then through the firewall just above the column for additional support and flex control.
Let's get a look at the Control Center, eh?? What have we got going on here... You'll notice the new universal 12v key switch adapted to the original bracket and placed neatly behind the dash in the stock location so that it looks like it BELONGS there! It looks sorta OEM, but it has an 'accessory' position and a 'crank' position unlike the original on/off style. Yeah, there's those gauges whic've been taken into custody and sentenced to ride in the speaker hole again... And then there's the light controls! The big thing that looks like a dimmer switch above the two smaller pull-out switches is just that...a new 12v dimmer switch mounted up out of the yuck and moisture on the floor! The pull-out switch on the left turns the tail lights on, and the one on the right trips directs power to the dimmer switch which then sends juice to one of two relays for the headlights. (BIG "THanks" to Customscaraudio here on the HAMB for the sweet Bosch relays!) Maybe kinda odd...but it's the way I decided to do things!
Here's what an S10 brakelight switch looks like bolted to the bottom of the dash with an L-bracket... It's wired up and works perfectly!
A little detail work... I was fresh out of 1/4" bolts, but I had some nuts left over. Just for fun, I made this silly little doo-hickey thing to bolt the vintage plate onto the car...more of my favored 1/4" zinc plated steel rod bent and threaded as needed! Looks Funk-r-iffic...no real function to it...but I'm actually starting to LIKE it!
Fashionable new battery tray...there was a jagged, gaping hole and a few rusty remnants of the old tray there when I started. I cut out the old rusty part, leaving a nice, neat rectangular hole where the battery "shelf" had been. A patch panel was made from sheet aluminum and bolted into place on top of a steel bracket. Then, a new plastic tray bolted down finished it off. Gonna fit me a nice side-terminal Delco Freedom in there! (Hold downs not pictured cuz there's no BATTERY in there yet!) Anyone else got progress/update photos of their stuff???
for progress pix, go here http://www.stmarymercy.org/webbabies/index.asp?urlid=7L4G7B9Z2Q password: KUCZYNSKI Jay
The Jalopy Journal
