Among all the stock of parts I had on hand that needed to be used up, an aftermarket shifter was one of the parts that I was glad to have on hand. The Elco needed a shifter since the car originally had a column shifter and the linkages I would need to get are somewhat hard to come by. In this case, the aftermarket shifter fits the bill. There were a couple things that would have to be accepted, like the cut down shell that would leave a large opening around the bottom of the shifter base. I also had to drill a hole in the center hump to route the cable through in order to connect to the transmission. This whole process was not quite straightforward however. It took a lot of fitting before I got to the point where things started working in my favor. The first hole that I drilled to route the cable placed the cable opposite the position it needed to be in. I drilled another hole just in front of the shifter and routed the cable through. Unfortunately, the cable was mounted to the right of the transmission body, putting the cable at such a sharp angle that when I did try to cycle the shifter after hooking everything up, the plastic guide tube in the cable broke, rendering the cable useless. Luckily, I had another shifter, one salvaged from the 73 Mustang, complete with a cable. I removed the cable from this shifter to use on the Elco shifter. Another thing I had to do was add the lever that came with the batch of brackets that came with the shifters. I needed this lever for the 700R4 in order to hook the cable end lug to the shift linkage on the transmission. I did have to do a bunch of test fitting of the bracket that mounts on the bolts for the oil pan in order to get the position where I needed to place the bracket so the cable would be able to cycle properly. With the cable routed through a third hole that was drilled to the left and just in front of the shifter, I had to coil the cable to get it where it would line up parallel to the transmission and the cable bracket. I had to test fit the position of the cable nuts to align everything with the lever. After getting everything aligned, I was able to finally get the shifter to cycle properly, locking in park as intended and cycling into all but the 1st gear selection on the transmission. The shifter was originally for a 3spd so since the 700R4 is a 4 spd, I can go through all gear selections except 1st, which is fine. With the shifter all operational, I was able to get the shell back on the shifter assembly and wrap up the whole shifter job, which had royally pissed me of for the whole day. With that done, I got myself ready to hit the junkyard, in search of more parts, most of which would be used on the Elco. I needed to get a starter for the engine, which would help me set TDC to place the spark plug wires that I also got from the auto parts store. I also needed to get two flange pipes for the exhaust manifolds so I can connect to these in the making of a complete exhaust system. Lastly, if I could find one, I wanted to get a driveshaft that was long enough to work on the long El Camino chassis. The only car that would possibly work here is a 4dr B-body GM, such as the Caprice, Delta 88, and similar box style GM boats from the 80s. Best case I would be building a driveshaft from this piece to fit in the Elco, worst case I'll have the bones for a shop to build a custom shaft, namely the yokes. I ended up cutting a couple short flange pipes from a late model truck, complete with O2 sensors. I also found a starter off another late model SUV, a smaller newer starter or the Vortec SBC engines used in the late 90's trucks and SUVs. This would obviously be an improvement over the noisy and larger starters that were used in the 80's SBC's. Lastly, I ended up getting the transmission yoke and U-joint assembly from a 4dr Caprice driveshaft. Why not the whole shaft? Well the damned thing was bent. I wasn't about to pay for the whole shaft when I would be cutting it up anyway. I cut off the last few inches of the driveshaft, which would allow me to grind off the yoke end intact, for use in a new driveshaft, whether one I built or one the shop builds. With these and the other parts from the auto parts store, I can get to work on the Elco putting things together. After getting these parts installed, all I need to get is a radiator and oil lines installed, along with the rest of the exhaust system and a battery and some fuel so I can get the engine started and tuned, while keeping the transmission safe by having oil flowing through the machine. The yoke in place will allow for the transmission to be filled up without it leaking out from the tail.
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