QWKDTSN Posted December 8, 2001 Share Posted December 8, 2001 Hey guys, I've been working for quite a long time today on getting my tranny lined up correctly. Firstly I'm worried about the driveshaft angle, so I've been sort of eyeing it and seeing if there's anything in the way. I hammered room for the clutch fork, maybe too much, since there's a bulge under the gas pedal now (will have to hammer it back from the inside and refine it some.. i'm not sure where the fork is going to be when everything's right). Lined up the crossmember, saw that it needed room on the passenger side, and hammered it in a bit. After a while I realized that there was not going to be any hammering to be done on the driver's side, plenty of room between the crossmember hump and the car floor. Immediately after that I realized that if I continued trying to line up the crossmember where it was, it would be resting under the frame rail!!! There's an inch and a half of space between the frame rail and the crossmember on the driver's side and negative one half inch on the passenger side. I fiddled with everything and moved the tranny over to the driver's side enough that the crossmember would fit. Of course, this completely misaligned everything. The tranny doesn't even come close to the right geometry with the diff, and the shifter is waaaaaaay off to the driver's side (it hits the left side of the shifter hole even in fifth gear). Remember, I'm using the T5 so the tranny is tilted towards the driver. What pisses me off the most is that every underside picture in the JTR manual shows 'prototype' transmission mounts. There isn't a sinigle picture of their own tranny crossmember mounted up to a car in the entire book, so I can't get a feel for how my own setup should look. There don't seem to be that many of you guys using T5s, despite the information available in the book, so I haven't been able to find any pictures of what it all should look like on the net either! It seems to me that the only way to make the crossmember fit right and have the tranny fit right is to drill another hole in the crossmember (not fun, considering it's hardened steel). Can anyone please give me any hints? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dankinzle Posted December 8, 2001 Share Posted December 8, 2001 Just a quick notion. The JTR crossmember is offcentered. Try flipping it around? ...just in case Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Juday Posted December 8, 2001 Share Posted December 8, 2001 Hey Nion. Give me a few hours. I'll crawl under and make some measurements. Fast Frog could lend help too, we both have Camaro T-5's. This I know from memory: The tunnel needed clearancing, on one side mostly, to line everything up. My shifter touched the drivers side of the hole, I had to trim about a 1/2" off the side of the hole. The JTR mount IS offset and will only really line up one way. I'll check it out and re-post later today. Dan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Juday Posted December 8, 2001 Share Posted December 8, 2001 Ok, here is what I came up with: If you measure from the center hole in the tranny crossmember (tranny mount hole) to the ends of the crossmember you find a long side and a short side. I mounted mine with the long side on the drivers side with the tranny mount hole offset to the front on the car. I lined up the hump on that side with the edge of the tunnel. I did a little clearancing on the drivers side just to mount the crossmember straight. Most of the clearancing was done on the passengers side. I measured 1 1/4" from the end of the tranny crossmember to the inside edge of the frame rail on the drivers side, and 3/4" on the passengers. In other words, I did all I could to move the tail of the tranny to the passengers side and I still had clearance problems with the shifter and the hole. Just for reference I also measured from the front edge/center of the front suspension crossmember to the center of the tranny mount hole and came up with 47". Now, having said all that, my car is a '73. I understand that the tunnel changed quite a bit from year to year. I don't think the position of the frame rails changed but I could be wrong. Re-reading your first post it sounds like the crossmember fits tight between the frame rails. I just went back out and measured and I have about 25" between my rails at the tranny crossmember. My JTR crossmember is about 23 1/4" long. Hope this helps. It's nice to be able to give back. The guys here went out of there way to help me when I was at that stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Fast Frog Posted December 8, 2001 Share Posted December 8, 2001 Yes, Dan is right in the general sense that the later Z(280) had a wider tranny tunnel. The only hammering I had to do was up front on the driver's side where the clutch fork is located. I had to hammer the rounded area where the bottom of the fire wall turns and becomes part of the tranny tunnel. I beat it in about 3/4" so the fork had adequate clearance. And yes, I had to cut about 1/2" or so along the shifter opening on the driver's side so the shifter would not rub against the metal. As I remember, I actually cut about 3" off of the passenger side of the tranny mount and "folded it over" to thicked that side so the mount would be level. Of course this is with a 280-this may not be necessary with a 240 or 260. And, from another thread I posted yesterday, I kept my drive train alignment parallel to the inside edge of the frame rail(as I remember, the engine fly wheel center line in the JTR offset position is the same dist from the inside edge of the pass side frame rail as is the center line of the diff yoke). 10,000 miles still no vibration! Nion: If I can help you with more details, give me a call at (wk)(970) 256-4021 or (hm)(970)464-0694. Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Juday Posted December 8, 2001 Share Posted December 8, 2001 One more item I forgot. I had to clearance for the clutch fork as well. And, like jtr says, I cut about 1 1/2" off the bottom of the gas pedel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QWKDTSN Posted December 9, 2001 Author Share Posted December 9, 2001 Hmm, I don't get it. The tranny mount hole should be at the rear of the crossmember so that there's less clearancing to be done, but it fits better when the hole is offset to the front. (shrug) I guess I'll go crawl around some more and work on it. Thanks for the help guys, I'm sure I will refer back to this post quite a bit. I've been at the Carlsbad dragstrip all day with my friend and his slow Mustang so I haven't gotten any work done Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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