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

Don helped me prime and bleed the air out of the 2nd Gen master cylinder on the bench before bolting it in place. I cut and bent a couple of the old lines to feed the fluid back into the reservoirs and kept pumping it until I saw no more bubbles.

I've got all of the new brake lines bent into shape. I started from the back and worked my way forward. The lines up front started at the wheel and worked towards the master cylinder because we know where they have to be there but there's room to get creative near the master cylinder. It was a little tricky getting getting them to meet up and stay clear of the parking brake cable and the gas pedal linkage. I was able to make the front ones work with the standard lengths they sell at the auto parts store but I used Don's double flaring tool to get the two lines on the rear axle cut to the perfect length.



Sunday I'll tighten everything up and bleed the lines and wheel cylinders! Then it's on to running lines for the transmission cooler.

Very nice of you to leave out the part where I had left the rear rubber line completely disconnected, and was surprised I wasn't getting any fluid coming out at the rear wheel cylinders! (note the puddles in the photo).

It was nice to meet Sonnygable and talk vans. He politely put up with my slow pace while Don pumped the brake pedal and waited for me to fix leaks. Glad they got to hit the beach scene afterwards.

Now that I've got the brakes done, it's time to finish up the transmission swap! I've been looking forward to adapting the stock automatic shifter rod to the 700R4 tranny. I figured it was just a matter of putting a lever on the tranny that had the right "throw" so the gears in the tranny match up with the P R N D L letters on my steering column.

The perfect angle for these two levers is to be perpendicular to the rod that connects them, and the levers parallel with each other. I figured this should be where Neutral is on both levers, and then the levers could go two clicks in either direction, forward to get into Park, rearward to get into L (which is Drive-without-overdrive on the 700R4).

Here is how it turned out (this shows it in Park):



I took a stock 700R4 shifter lever and welded a slotted piece of metal to it at an angle that put neutral at the angle I wanted. The slot let me easily adjust the throw to compensate for the difference in the distance of the gears in the tranny and the column shifter. The other thing that made this real easy was the threaded rod with swivel connectors on both ends. I cut the rod down to an approximate length and then could fine tune the length with the threaded ends. The swivels allowed my two levers to not need to be in the exact same plane.



The other change I had to make was to change the angle of the lever on the van's part. I cut it off and rotated it further forward. It used to be "behind" the other lever (red line in photo), but to center its travel I ended up putting it a little ahead of the other lever.



I bought this kit for $45. All the parts are stainless steel. That's where I got the rod and its ends. But I thought the important part would be the lever that mounts to the tranny. It's cool because not only does it have the slot, it has splines so you can set its angle anywhere you want (they call it "gear pointer alignment"). But since I had already welded up made arm, I stuck with it. The rod turned out to be the valuable item for me.



Let me know if you are interested in this lever for your swap project. It fits these trannies: 350, 400, 700R4, 200R4

This weekend I got my auxiliary tranmission cooler installed. I don't know if you can tell from this photo but I mounted it at an angle going from the floor down to the sway bar. I wanted it back far enough as to not see it through the grill. It would have been a lot easier to just mount it to the front of the radiator using the clips that came with the cooler but that didn't seem good. Plus I'll probably be putting an electric fan in front of the radiator.



The company that overhauled my 700R4 tranny strongly suggested hooking the cooling lines to the radiator. Since my van came with an automatic my radiator had the hookups. I've went back and forth on this, knowing how our vans like to overheat. I ended up compromising by running the tranny fluid through the auxiliary cooler first and then thru the radiator. We'll see how that works. To swap the order, all I need to do is swap the two rubber hoses to the steel lines. (When I know I've got everything where I want it I'll probably put steel lines all the way.) I have to call them and tell them how everything is hooked up before I run it or they will not honor their warranty.

They also said that having a fan shroud can boost your cooling by 20%. I've never seen a 1st Gen with a shroud but I know they came with them. I'll try to adapt one from the junkyard.

I think I'm on track for my first test drive on Memorial Day weekend!!

I still get confused on the whole tranny cooler thing. Everyone has a different story on what is the best way to hook it up.
I would think it's better to skip the rad, but if it's not warranted then you got to do what you got to do...
http://eastauto.co.nz/technical1.htm

This picture from your link shows the way Bowtie Overdrive suggests hooking up an auxiliary tranny cooler:



I can see why they would want to run the fluid thru the radiator first. Another site put it this way: If you had a red hot piece of steel you wanted to cool off, which would be faster -- putting it in water or holding it in front of a fan?


Of course, the water in the radiator isn't usually cold water. Bowtie says this can be a good thing too, though, especially in cold climates. The radiator regulates the tranny temp, sometimes by keeping it from being too cold.

But I figure I'll run it through the aux cooler first to air cool it, then thru the radiator. And putting the aux cooler right on the front of the radiator seems like it would just transfer that heat right into the radiator!

Speaking of electric fans, I'd been planning on replacing the stock fan with an electric one. I figure all new cars are that way, and lots of hot rods. But then I noticed, there's only an inch and a half or two between the water pump pulley and the radiator in a 1st Gen! No electric fan will squeeze between there. You could put one on either side of the pulley but they'd be pretty small. I know you can put one on the front of the radiator and reverse the polarity so blades spin the other way but then what about the shroud? Seems like a shroud wouldn't have the same effect on the front, like it would block the air from the corners rather than pull it thru.

What do you think?

I'm not sure but I think by plumbing the aux trans cooler in before the rad might defeat its purpose, its possible you will get more cooling out of it than you think and end up just reheating it before it goes back to the trans. Something else , and I havent nailed it down, by seperating the cooler from the rad it may make an airspace that restricts airflow to the rad by causing some turbulance for lack of a better word. I know mine is setup differently but I have noticed I created a "high" pressure area between the rad and engine by the hot air shooting up thru the e-brake opening, this made me think of the air dam effect. Just thinking aloud here and maybe something to think about if you have an y issues with cooling, After saying all that it is doing okay in this near 90 temps we are getting right now.

Question???? You have a 6 cyl , would I have to do something like this with a V8

I lowered mine 1-1/2 inches and if I did it over Id drop it more but mostly because of the stance mine ended up with. But the 1 1/2 " allowed the driveline to be super close to the right angles. it also depends on the hieght at the trans mount. this is for the 700R

You are right, Digz, the whole idea of adding an auxilliary tranny cooler is to further cool the fluid after it has passed thru the radiator. My way could have ended up heating it back up! So in the end I ran the lines the way everyone says: to the radiator first, then the aux cooler, then back to the tranny.

A while back I had fabricated a bracket to attach the TV (throttle valve) cable to the sideways carburetor on my straight six. All seemed fine until Don gave me the choke linkage, which went right where I was planning to mount my bracket!

So yesterday I finished welding up plan B. I attached it to the carb, hooked up the TV cable and then moved on to the next item on the Bowtie Overdrive checklist: Remove tranny pan and make sure the TV plunger was moving properly. Bowtie has pages and pages of documentation on this setup, and I have read thru them many times since I bought this tranny (two years ago!!). It was finally clear in my head. This cable is the only thing that tells the 700R4 tranny what the engine is doing. And it all comes down to one thing: when you put the gas pedal to the floor, the TV plunger in the tranny needs to get pushed all the way in. When the engine is at idle, the plunger come back all the way out. Sounds simple enough, and there are some other subtleties, but really it's a lot like what I had to do to get the van's shifter linkage to move the tranny's shifter the right amount.



But, this morning when I tested this, I found I didn't have enough throw on the cable. It didn't move the plunger far enough! I had based the lever's radius on a 700R4 diagram I'd found online but I needed to my arm longer. And my nice bracket all welded up solid! I looked at the adapters Bowtie makes for popular 4 barrel carbs and saw that they were all adjustable so you could dial in the proper angle and throw. So back to the drawing board! Again! And I had to get it all together and working so I could test the pressure and call Bowtie before they closed at 5:00 today!!

I cut my bracket into two pieces and added a third in between them to allow for two screws that would allow me to make adjustments. I was trying to devise clever slots that would allow me make the lever longer and change the angle. But for started, I just took an educated guess as to a starting point. I drilled two holes, screwed the two parts together, put it on the carb, adjusted the cable and crawled underneath (yet again) to take a look at this plunger. It was 3:30. And hallelujah, it was perfect!!! Here I redesigned it to make it adjustable and I didn't even have to cut any slots! What a relief!



Plunger at idle: Cable at wide-open-throttle: Plunger at wide-open-throttle:

(Also, while I had the pan off, I was instructed to make sure the gears were actually lining up when I moved the shifter (they were) and make sure the dipstick was at the right level (it was).)

I rushed to get the pan back on, poured in 5 quarts of tranny fluid, got the engine fired up and poured in 6 more. Bowtie had sold me a pressure gauge with a 7 foot hose so I could put the gauge where I could read it while in the drivers seat. I chocked all the wheels and put on the parking brake. I got to test my new brakes too while I put it into each gear and wrote down the PSI for each. This was repeated with the TV cable removed, and then with me bringing the RPMs up to 1500 and manually pulling the TV cable all the way out until I felt it stop (plunger fully buried). I had the back tire spinning at one point!

Thankfully the Bowtie guys had not all left early for the Memorial Day weekend when I called at 4:45! Their guy asked me some questions about how I had installed the tranny and then I gave him my numbers. He said they were all perfect! This was fantastic news, after all this time, planning, and work! And now I had his blessing to move on to the road testing this weekend.

(If anyone wants more info or more photos, let me know. I think I am now an expert! Catch me before I forget it all.)

Regarding lowering the engine, they say the engine and tranny should be level with the ground. So since I couldn't get my tranny up high enough, I figured I better lower the engine, since it's fairly easy to do. I think aluminum is plenty strong, especially because gravity is pulling the crossmember down. The blocks are really just spacers. I suppose there is torque on them. We'll see how they fare.

If I had it to do over again, now that I know where the 700R4 tranny hits the crossmember, I would have rather heated up the crossmember and bent it up out of the way. I just didn't want to take the tranny out again.

Hey Digz, if your stance has your van jacked up in the back, wouldn't lowering the engine make the engine at more of an angle to the ground? Or did you lower the tranny mount even more?

If it was higher in the back ,,yes it would have ,,but I ended up level and maybe just a tad high in the front, So right, the trannny would have to drop along with the engine. I dont know if they told you at Bowtie but once you have it all working, you can adjust the feel of the shift by moving the cable in your carb bracket 1 click ata a time. Cable housing towards the trans will tighten it up (shifts will feel harder). No wonder when I talked to those guys on the phone they knew about the vans !! I ordered the speedo drive gears and housing from them. What did you do for the lock-up system ?. I am happy with the pressure switch and vacumn switch in line so far.

Vanagain,your TV cable bracket looks good.I'd lil pieces of metal all over the floor.
Dude your gettin real close now.We know 'somebody' whose gonna make a vid of your Sport rolling down the road.heh This has been a good thread on your build.I've learned a bit.

I'm only catchin about 30 sec of vid 1&2,nuthin on 3(maybe my computer).
My azz is rollin on the floor.It went from 'Alright!' to 'you need to be drivin forward' in 2 seconds.Hillarious.But I did see it move.Good job V A !

Yes, it was a big day today! The van is no longer just a decoration in my driveway! We got it to move under its own power! Took a couple drives up and down the block. The tranny worked fine but the engine needs some more tuning. It would backfire when it got under load. Got to check the timing and I still need to rebuild the carb.

Sure was glad that Don could be here for the maiden voyage!! Always the voice of reason. There are many, many smaller tasks to be done -- the fun stuff! -- but where to start? He recommended starting with the wiring. No more hotwiring to start it! Got the 3-wire alternator hooked up so my battery will now charge. And the HEI ignition might enjoy some more oomph rather than running on the battery alone.

Vids are workin now.Y'all are great !Glad to see it runnin & drivin now V A.Looks like tranny worked out good for ya.
High light of vid # 3--- "hold on !"........'To WHAT ?!'
a real Abbot & Costello moment.Heh