hey guys.. im about ready to rip my hair out with this kickdown linkage. I bought the kickdown rod and associated carb linkage off ebay and the rod does NOT want to work on my car. My car is a 66 barracuda. Im not sure as to the year or car that this linkage came from but so far it will NOT work. Now my understanding is that the tranny lever must go ALL the way forward and ALL the way back is this correct? ive driven the car several times and the car will NOT kick down. The stock square block and swivel bolt will NOT clear the tranny tunnel under the car. So it will only go back to far and then hit the tunnel and then thats it. Ive been messing with this thing for weeks now and I cannot seem to make it happy. If i try to make it go back more to push the lever back more then it seems that it wont push the lever forward all the way and vice versa.. I cannot seem to find a happy medium with it. Will these stock rods just not work on early As or what? ANY help at all will be much appreciated guys thanks.

Sometimes you need to make some clearance dimples in the floor pan to clear the adjustment block. Also make sure you're using the whole super six kickdown linkage, including the lever on the trans, rather than hooking the 2bbl kickdown rod to the 1bbl lever on the trans.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

The super six linkage works on the 1967-1980 cars with the 'fat/wide' bodies... I seem to remember that a while back someone had to 'restructure' the rod with a steeper bend due to the firewall consideration in the 1963-1966 cars. If not into cutting and rewelding some things, you might just think about getting a Lokar Kickdown Cable for the A-904 as the 'easy fix'...

-D.Idiot

Slant six Dan. whats the different between the 1bbl lever and the 2 bbl? is it just longer or is the shape different? I didnt think there was a difference in the levers but if you say there is then I believe ya..

DusterIdiot.. yes I have had to do some restruction on the rod it self. I never had problems with it clearning the firewall its more of the problem of the tranny tunnel not clearing. Ive attempted to add some dimples to the tunnel with no luck. What ive done now is actually threading the end of the rod and making a new piece to hook to the tranny lever. this way I have no clearance issues with the tunnel and its still adjustable but simply screwing the piece forward or backwards. I finished this piece today and put it on the car and now the car kicks down.

Another question I have is on the carter bbd. does it have a bowl vent that I have to leave open like the holley does?

thanks guys for ur info. very good suggestions. had this new piece had not have worked I would have been out of ideas but then thats why I come here and ask you guys. have a good day everyone.

Various-year BBDs have various bowl vent setups. See the Carter BBD operation and repair manual (pdf) for details.

There is some confusion on the trans lever. Some of us, myself included, have found and used shorter trans levers on 2bbl-equipped cars, while others have found no difference between the 1bbl and the 2bbl levers. The factory parts catalogues are infuriatingly vague on the subject.

The Lokar cable is one option. I've never used one and probably will not, because it seems like every time someone tries to install one they run into problems and hassles making it work correctly. I am, however, growing closer and closer to installing on my '62 the Bouchillon kickdown cable setup which uses later-model factory parts.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

So I got my motor and trans installed today and as much as I had to clearance my floor for the old set-up I really am going to need to do some creative hammering for long super six levers. Can I get away with using my old, short levers in this situation? It seems a bit vague if this will work or not after reading some old posts on this topic.

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So would that be a yeah or nay to using the short 1bbl trans levers on the 2bbl equipped vehicle?

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Yes, you can use the short lever as long as you have a slotted linkage piece up at the carb.

As the lever gets shorter, the travel needed to go from low Throttle Pressure (TP) to full TP is reduced. So most of your driving (small throttle opening and movement) does not move the lever.
With the longer lever you get more "feel" with your foot and you can get the trans to "shuttle down" (part throttle downshift) with less throttle opening.
DD

Polara Pat: I used the single bbl lever on mine. Although there may be a difference in lever lengths which a longer one may help but in my case with an early A, a longer lever would not have worked. I had hardly any clearance with the transmission tunnel hitting the rod when I finally got it to work. But then again ur not using an early A im assuming so ur tunnel may have more clearance than mine did. You can expect to make some changes to the rod itself. I had to reshape mine to make it work. Also another problem I had was the kickdown rod rubbing against the column shift linkage thats hooked to the back lever. If I would have had a floor shift it would have been much easier I think. Any way hopefully your installation wont be as troublesome as mine but just keep tryin, eventually it will work.

Actually, I am working on an early A ('64) so we're in the same boat. I ended up doing some subtle bends on the levers to clear the floor and of course compensating bends in the kick-down rod so everything cleared the Z-bar, exhaust, firewall and still had full travel. It took a while to get everything right but it seems smooth now. The big problem I was having was with the k/D rod adjusted all the way forward, it wasn't allowing WOT. Today is fire-up, so you'll be hearing from me soon.

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