Back to......VANagains NEWest 65 Chevy SportVan Deluxe

Good question. I know there are advantages to going with the 200R4, like not having to shorten the driveshaft, and I think the tailshaft splines match our driveshaft yoke. But just because the tranny is a couple inches shorter I bet it will still hit the crossmember. This is not a great photo but you can see where the front half of the crossmember gets close to the top of the tranny (upper right of photo).



I've thought about removing the tranny and taking a torch to that part of the crossmember and bending it up out of the way. But I'm okay with lowering everything. It gets the engine that much more out in the breeze, right?!

Another thing about the 200R4, its tailshaft housing is not removable. This means there are no bolts back there to use to attach a slick mount like mine.

700R4

200R4

Hey, look what I just ran across! Someone makes a shorter tailshaft housing to make a 700R4 the same length as a TH350. I wonder where you get the shorter shaft...
http://ctoff-road.com/shorty_700r4_tailshaft.htm

I did a lot of fabricating over the long weekend! Well, I should say I spent a lot of time doing a little fabricating! Worked out a good way to hook up the 700R4's TV cable to the carburetor linkage. They all say the geometry of this cable and its relationship to the throttle is very important to get the shifting right. This is the diagram everyone refers to:



Note: They show the cable mounted below the pivot point, but I put mine above. It works the same either way.

They sell brackets for V8's with popular carbs but none for a sideways-mounted one barrel!! I've seen guys attach the cable to one of the many throttle linkage rods or bell cranks, but I think it should be right on the carb's bell crank. No sense involving all the accumulated slop in all that other linkage.

My carb is a Rochester Monojet from a 2nd Gen, I think, so the carb bell crank lever may not look like yours. But using a procedure similar to this should work for yours.

My initial plan was to attach a flat piece of metal to the bell crank and then mount the cable connector pin to this. I trimmed a piece of thin cardstock so it would hold itself onto the bellcrank. I marked the bell crank's pivot point and some holes I could use for mounting the metal plate. Then I used a compass to draw a 1.1" radius arc from the pivot point. This is the path the cable's pin will move in. (To get the right amount of travel on the cable, the cable connector pin needs to be mounted about 1.1" away from the pivot point of the carb bell crank -- in other words, with a radius of 1.094 to 1.125 inches from the throttle plate's shaft.)



As you can see in the diagram up top, everything is based on a line perpendicular to TV cable. The idle position is 23° this side of that line, and full throttle is 55° the other way. (This Rochester did move a total of 78° like in the diagram.) So next I had to determine at which angle the TV cable would come to the carb. I found there was enough room to run it between the valve cover and the air cleaner. This put the cable coming down at a bit of an angle. Using a straight edge I drew this angle on the template, with it touching the top of the circle. And another line 90° to that, running down to the pivot point:



Then I used a protractor to draw a line 23° to the right of that line. And finally this gave me the mounting point for the connector pin! (Where it says "idle")



Now, here's where I'll save you some wasted time. I cut this same shape out of thin metal and attached it with screws to the bell crank. (Sorry, no picture.) Hooked the TV cable up to it and was feeling pretty good about myself! This had only taken a couple hours. And then I "gave it some gas", rotating the carb's bell crank and found that the cable end ran into the carb's return spring!! D'oh!

I toyed with the idea of moving the spring further out but I didn't want to do that. I tried putting the plate on the other side of the bell crank. This would move the pin in far enough to clear the spring. But the plate had to be so cut up to clear the shaft and stuff that it seemed too flimsy. Then I got an idea. I now knew exactly where this pin needed to be, so maybe I could just run some thicker steel up to that point and weld the pin to it.

Anyhow, sometime the next day I came up with this simple little gem:



I put two nuts on the pin and welded it to a piece of 3/8" steel bar. Drilled and tapped two holes to mount it to existing holes in the bell crank. Here's how it looks in place:



Very nice. All that work done but now I had to mount the actual TV cable housing to the engine at the angle I had drawn on the template... I'll post that story tomorrow.

Very cool and great info too....

In case you're wondering what the heck a TV cable is, here's a link to Bowtie Overdrive's 700R4 FAQ:

http://700r4.com/faq/whattv.shtml

The rebuilt tranny I bought from them came with this little kit:



This is where I got the cable connector pin. The other part I used was the "universal" bracket. This is what the cable housing snaps into. It's got two slots so the final angle can be fine tuned. In the end I just had to relocate one of these slotted tabs.

There were several bolts I could have used to mount this bracket but I tried to keep maintenance in mind. I didn't want to block access to the throttle adjustment screw, the manifold bolts, and two vacuum lines. The first bracket mounts to two valve cover bolts, kind of like one long washer. Then I welded another piece at a right angle, angling a little bit away from the valve cover so it wouldn't rub on it. I left this piece long for a while so I could clamp the universal bracket to it and determine the perfect height. This one bracket may have been enough but I wanted to make sure it wouldn't flex at all and throw off the adjustment so I added a second bracket attached to the carb mounting stud. It needed a tricky angle to come over to reach the univ. bracket while staying clear of the vacuum line and the idle screw. That's also why I chopped the univ. bracket shorter.



Here's a top view. You can see where the second bracket mounts to the carburetor bolt.


Looking at these photos now it looks so simple and straightforward. But it took a lot of time and cardboard templates to get to this point. I'm very happy with the simplicity of it!

Good job! I would never say that task was simple! You might end up with a bunch of orders from people who want your templates!

Man that looks great! Isn't anything simple about reworking "Universal" stuff. should say " Ya get the general idea bracket" That carb stud for the TVC is genious as far as Im concerned. Definately may be borrowin some of that idea for the 350TH swap on the gray van.

I'll measure the travel distance of the TV cable when I get back in town. I haven't done the final adjustment yet, but now that the brackets are all painted up, I can. They say to take the pan off the tranny and look to make sure the valve body plunger is all the way in both directions, like the pictures show on the Bowtie Overdrive web page. Then I can tell you the proper travel distance.

Initially I drilled a hole in my tranny mount bracket just big enough to put the long bolt thru. When I ran the bolt thru the crossmember and the bracket it held the tranny in place. Of course this was just temporary because there was no rubber in the mount. But it was good while I decided how far I wanted to drop the engine crossmember to level out the engine. It turned out this initial hole put the tranny at just the height I wanted, so I drew a big circle around that hole that was the diameter of the steel tube I had bought to fit the rubber motor mount thingies. I cut out the big hole with a plasma cutter, which made a somewhat raggedy hole that I touched it up until the tube slid though with a little slop up and down. This allowed it to find the angle it wanted to be at when I bolted the bracket to the tranny and crossmember again.

This is what was great about this part of the process. I never needed to measure or even know the actual angle where the tube met the bracket, it went to that angle when I tightened all the bolts on the tranny tail shaft and the long bolt thru the crossmember! Then I used the MIG welder to put a good solid tack weld on the portion I could reach (the shiny bare metal in this photo). Then I lowered the tranny and removed the bracket so I could finish welding all the way around the tube on the bench!





(Note: I found I didn't need to lower the tranny all the way down to get the bracket to clear the crossmember if I rotated the tailshaft along with the bracket. With the four bolts removed, the tailshaft can spin around without actually removing it. And I have no fluid in the tranny at this point.)

Next I need to weld some gussets on the sides to keep the metal from unbending.



In this cardboard mockup you can see that I was going to have the tube sit in a half-round "saddle", with the bracket only connecting along the bottom of the tube. That would have looked more streamline but I ended up leaving the metal go all the way around the tube. More strength and less cutting for me!

Hooray, I finished welding this tranny bracket! Here's a picture of it after some grinding and paint, next to the factory TH350 bracket:



Here's how the final assembly went:

The bracket is now bulkier than before, so it was a challenge to get in place. Before it had wiggle room so I could rotate it around the tailshaft to get it up into the crossmember. But now with the side gussets, it can no longer rotate. It wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the bulge where the speedometer gear mounts in the tail shaft (you can see the bulge in the photos below). So I had to loosen the engine crossmember bolts a lot to allow the tranny to drop far enough to get it up in there. Even then I had to use a big rubber hammer for encouragement. (The right way to do this would be to lower the engine further so the tranny bracket could go straight up into the crossmember. But I didn't want to have to drain the coolant and remove the radiator hoses.)

Looks nice when it's all bolted in place:



Because it was such a bitch to get it in place, I didn't do a test fit before painting it. Now that it's mounted I see that the output shaft is not centered vertically within the rear seal (you can see that in the left photo above). I see a few spots where the gusset "sides" are hitting the tranny, so I think that's keeping the tail shaft from drawing up tightly to the rest of the tranny. In the photo below you can see I didn't leave enough clearance for that black round thing.

Plus you'll see another problem -- that bolt head now obstructs the speedo gear cover. I drilled that hole just before painting the bracket so I never realized this problem in earlier test fits! I laid there looking at this for about 10 minutes, trying to think of a remedy. I didn't like any of the ideas that came to me. It wasn't until I went to bed that night that the simplest solution came to me: use a countersunk bolt! If I can find a metric bolt with a countersunk head (probably an allen wrench-type) then all I need to do is countersink that hole. I can do that when I remove the bracket one more time to give it more clearance at those contact points. Almost there!!

SUH-WEET!!! That's excellent work!

LOOKS REALLY NICE !!!!!!!!!!!

Last weekend the things I tried to install and be done with all had problems that forced me to take them back off. The gas tank went in but came back out, and same with the tranny hanger.

But this weekend everything worked out! I trimmed the tranny hanger here and there so it fit better and the countersunk bolt made room to install the speedometer cable housing. And for some reason this time the hanger came out and went back in without the use of a hammer! Oh, and while the hanger was off, I tightened up the tail shaft and found that the output shaft still was not centered vertically within the rear seal. But I can move the shaft by hand to center it, so I figure when the driveshaft's yoke goes in there, the bushing centers everything up. I'll cross my fingers and hope for no leaks.

Now, back to the gas tank. I thought I was done adapting the Impala sending unit but ran into a couple more things. I was so wrapped up in bending it to fit inside the tank that I neglected to measure the part the sticks outside the tank! This photo shows how I had to trim off the two alignment tabs so I could have the inside parts aimed the right way (pointing forward in the tank). One of these tabs had the ground wire spot welded to it. I cut the wire off the old stock sending unit and drilled a hole in it and screwed it to the new unit.



Then when went to mount the tank, it seemed like something was hitting on the top. I measured and determined there is 1.75" of clearance between the floor and the top of the tank. This photo shows how I used some wood to recreate this spacing on the bench and saw that the stainless fuel line need to be bent down some. You can also see how I used a long hose so it can wind its way around to come straight thru the crossmember.



Oh, and I ordered a 3/8" sending unit, not realizing that our vans have the smaller 5/16" fuel lines. I had to really force the rubber hose onto it but it will work. I don't think there's any harm in having a larger size in the sending unit. But it was very difficult to bend. I wish I'd have gotten the smaller size.

The tank went in nicely. I recommend taping the four pads to the tank first because they are about impossible to adjust when the tank is up in there. I put strips of tar paper between the two straps and the tank. The hardest part was hooking up the hoses. No one makes the right diameter hose for the big one so I got the next size up. That went on real easy. But the breather hose was extremely tight going on and there isn't much room to man handle it. I used dish soap to lube the pipes but it took everything I had to get them on as far as I did. I reused the original, old style clamps because they look cool and they cleaned up so nice. And I had put a nice paint job on the filler tube.



Speaking of which, let me know if you could use a nice clean filler tube. I've got two. Both cleaned up pretty nice but I only need one. And I noticed the metal on these is kind of soft. A scraper would take metal off. I'm wondering if there isn't some lead in it. Anybody know? Maybe to reduce the risk of sparks when filling?

Thats some nice work. I maybe lucked out and got the right size hoses at the local Auto Value Store. The 3/8" is good if you ever go to a V8 install and I was wishin' I had an extra filler tube when I did the side gas door thing, ended up doing some surgery(cut and weld) on the old one to get the angles right, so it isnt all bad having an extra around to play with if ya ever think of going that way. Also you made me realize I didnt put any pads back in on the top of the tank,,,lol,, I had nothing there to start with so didnt know any better. Thanks

Since I've got the front brakes, brake hoses, backing plates, shocks, and steering knuckles all removed, it seemed like the perfect time to. Check out the kingpins and bushings. I was fortunate enough to get the pins out that hold the kingpins in but when the kingpins didn't just "fall out on my foot" as Don said they should, I didn't think I should mess with them. They have brass bushings so that tells me that they've been replaced. I was afraid to upset the magic pixie dust in this crucial component. I felt the same way about removing the pin in the rear end, but Don showed me how it all worked so I no longer feared the unknown. And I'm sure he's right about these kingpins. Like everything else on these vans, ya gotta know what you got.

Just before dark tonight Don dropped by with a tool that allowed us to press the kingpins out. There was enough rust on them resist but they did come out. And we found that the bottom drivers side had nit been lubed enough. It. Either rusted, worn, or both. Now I just have to decide between brass or plastic bushings.

While I've got these parts off I'm going to sandblast and paint them, of course.

Now your cheating Don!!! You are suppose to use a BFH!!!! JK
B.W.

Wow, serious work there! I like your air impact / c-clamp press!

Another important thing to realize about Don's cool tools is that most of them are portable. So he can handle just about any job on the roadside or in a junkyard!

Here's shot of more parts I sandblasted:



After a bit more painting I can start putting these parts back on! Should go pretty smoothly, compared to the disassembly!

Vanagain how did the sending unit come out????????? The bidding on the NOS one on e-bay is getting scary.