Art & Inspiration White shift boot for my Impala

Last summer I finally jerked the TH350 out of my 61 and put a 4 speed in it, I looked and looked at the time for a vintage white shift boot. I think Eelco and maybe Cal custom made them, but I could not find one. I ended up putting a current production Hurst boot on it that is just like the ones they made back in the sixties. And it looks ok but I still kept looking for a white boot...



Then last week I did a "white shift boot" search on Ebay and a white rubber boot for a 2004 GTO showed up, the round part looked pretty similar to the Hurst unit so I bought it and another Hurst unit

 

So I turned the white boot inside out and compared it in size to the Hurst one and it looked just right

 

So, I cut all the extra away on the white boot and figured I would epoxy it ti the Hurst plate, I glued and clamped it overnight

 

I removed the clamps and I really should have known better because the white boot is silicone I believe and it just laughed at the glue and fell apart. Time for plan B. I cut out a pc of 1/4" white acrylic just a little bigger than the hurst plate and machined a hole in it for the boot to stick through

 

I then drilled and tapped the acrylic for some short 6-32 screws to hold the boot on from underneath and the side benefit is the white edge of the acrylic that shows past the chrome plate finishes it off real nice.

 

My car is on my storage hoist and it is still winter, so I will have to wait to install it on the car...

 

Haha, yeah I just stuck those screws in the holes to align the parts for a picture, the screws that hold it to the floor are sheet metal screws and are phillips head.... This boot isn't quite as flexible as the hurst unit and the bellows are not as deep, so it will be interesting to see how well it works once I get to install it. Can't wait to see how it looks.

 

Acrylic hoarder

 

I wonder if saddle soap would work?

 

for the last 20 years at work the scrap acrylic bin was just outside the door to the shop I worked in. I brought home a lot of pcs. that I thought were "too good to throw away"