A lot has happened in the past week! The crossmember has been built in stages with the help of a local fabricator. I'd setup templates and he'd get the parts ready... I'd fit the parts and make adjustments... he'd modify. We're just about done, with final assembly tomorrow or Thursday. The cross member is looking great. Amazing work from the fabricator.
Also had a bracket built to support the shift rod. I tried to make it fit the contour of the tab on the side of the 518 so it would hold better. Tests has been positive so far.
I worked on the electrical and decided to manually control the overdrive as phase one, just to be sure everything else works before complicating it with pressure and vacuum switches. I tapped off the neutral saftey switch which has a live wire off the ignition (the center wire). Then ran the electrical up thru the firewall and under the carpet to the console. I found a way to get the wire to trace up thru the front of the shifter. My T-shifter was wrapped in electrical tape because it was crap, so I decided to run the wire to a switch in the shifter handle. A simple hole drilled in the front and an opening for the wires to exit the handle. It toggles the overdrive (on to the left and off to the right). Fits my hand perfectly. The ground goes to the screw in the base of the handle. I'm going to tape it up to hide it... will look just as it did before.
I'm spending the next few days in final assembly... have a cooler to hook up, fluid to pour and lots of loose ends to straighten out.
If all goes well I may have the car moving this weekend!
Evolution of the cross member
The spedo barely cleared this so it was notched out a bit after this photo.
figuring out the mount
jumping ahead to today... it's pretty much done...
Shift rod bracket
In place
Building the wiring harness... splice into the center wire for the 2-pin OD controller.
Built the switch into the handle. This temporary so I can disconnect it to mess with it.
This will get covered when it's proven to work!
Fingers crossed this doesn't all fall apart! : )
Alan
