I recently acquired a newly reman 5 speed out of a 97 1500 and want to put it in my 65 to replace my old 4 speed. Don't know if any of you have tried something like that. It looks like I will have to remove the e brake crossmember to make it fit and the trans crossmember mounts toward the drive shaft end of the trans. Any suggestions as to where I find or how I make a new crossmember and get the e brake remounted? It also has hydraulic clutch which doesn't appear to be a hard swap. I appreciate any advice. Matt
The crossmember can be gotten from any supplier. It's the same as the automatic trans crossmember. The two areas that may give your trouble are the shifter and the e-brake. I'm not familiar with that particular 5 speed, but if the shifter location is on the tail, like Tremics or old Borg Warner's, you may need to fabricate a portion of the shifter to get it up through the floor in a "normal" location. I needed to do that on my 37 with a 6" section of round steel running inside a console parrellel to the floor to get the shifter to come up through the center console at a comfortable location. For the e-brake, SAVE EVERYTHING FROM THE OLD ONE !! You will need to fabricate some more. Two options; 1) Replace everything with a Lokar e-brake setup. Handle, cables,, everything ! 2) Use the parts off the old one. One way I've seen is to take the old e-brake fulcurm mechanism off the old e-brake crossmember and weld it to the bottom of the new trans crossmember. The benifits would be that you will be able to use most of the old cables and the cost would be minimum. The downside is that it makes transmission removal a real pain. If you can afford it the Lokar method is the best option for an e-brake using their foot pedal and ditching the hand lever from under the column. Val
Thanks, Val. The shifter is probably 3" or so farther back than the original, so I hope it won't be that big an issue. The e brake will probably take the most attention. I'll keep you guys posted. Matt
