I have the 833OD into my '65 Valiant. I'm looking to link up but find some oddities in the clutch linkage.

Does the z-bar in these conversions normally position in a pretty perpendicular way or does it angle off and down (or up) at a way cockeyed angle?

I have two ball stud mounts with two different lengths of studs (one welded on), but neither even comes close to aligning with the stud on the fender wall. What's up?

Thanks

The late bellhousings were meant for the late cars which have a different position of the engine mounts than the sandwich models. You will need to make up for difference by seeing which end is off, and making up for it with either a bracket on the fender side or an offset plate on the bellhousing...

everything should be straight with no angles... that would cause binding and some linkage problems/failures.

-D.Idiot

RossKinder -

I just finished this exact installation into my 66 Dart over the last two weeks. The early A body pivot points do not line up with the new bellhousing. We (mechanic and I) had to custom make a new pivot point on the bellhousing up higher to keep the correct horizontal / level alignment. The pivot point on the car remained untouched. The Z Bar itself had to be modified. The lower arm had to be cut off and re-attached at a different angle to work with the fork and adjustment rod. The adjustment rod also had to be modified. There was defineatly a 'ripple' effect once you modified the pivot point. Once modified, it all works great.

66Dart

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Thanks.

Any suggestions about going at that? It occurs to me that moving the outboard end would screw up the link to the pedal and moving the inboard end would make things interesting at the clutch. Do guys have to improvise longer clutch push rods? Maybe get (or make) a different z-bar? Are there any gotchas to watch for when improvising?

Thanks

1. Which way did you move the lower arm? Was it a straight rotation about the z-bar body?

2. Did you use a MIG? Z-bars I've seen are very thin.

3. You made the rod longer?

I may have special trouble. A Midas muffler jerk did a really bad pipe job a while back. (He was PO'd because I wouldn't let him put a 12 inch glass pack on the car.)

Thanks.

I had to come back and ask. What is a sandwich model? Anything to do with a photo shoot at a delicatessen?

Thanks

depends on the subway franchise...maybe it's a blimpie... *uuuughh*

1960-1972 has the sandwich motor mounts, the mounts on the block have an offset to them, compared to the 1973-1980+ 'spool' mounts which are straight when looking at the mounting points on the block.

-D.idiot

we wont talk about double meat, or 12" for 6" prices days...

Ross,

Using the same clutch pedal and clutch master cylinder, it was easier for me to just mount a slave pull cylinder to a small angle iron bracket on teh frame, then create an extension to the cylinder rod by mating a connector to a piece of threaded rod. The wilwood has the longest pull by about a 1/8 inch so I went with it. Even has the feel of a stock linkage. To find your stroke and do final adjustments, lay under your vehicle with the tranny mounted to the clutch. Turn the output shaft by hand with the tranny in neutral. Using a wood lever, move the fork from fully engaged to released while turning the output shaft. Measure the stroke and adjust your rod to match. THe clutch disc will spin quite freely from the flywheel when you have it released, so you can easily know the working range.

rok
'64d100

It might be that hydraulic would be the way to go, even tho my '65 has mechanical. But that would require more parts searching, something I'm up to here with.

Thanks

Ross,

One reason I had a mountain of parts left was the endless parts search for years so I sure know about "up to here". But have heart, to do a pull slave allyou need is the slave cylinder attached to a master cylinder. I still have mine and would sell it reasonable. Let me have your regular email and I can email you some pics of it in place in my truck, same deal for a car, just a different shape anlge frame for the slave attachment. I don't remember if you had a hydraulic clutch for your vehicle as the trucks did. I have the master cylinder if you don't have a spare one. If in your car you only have a brake master cylinder and the Z-bar linkage setup then yeh, you would need a master cylinder, brake line to pull cyl slave, and the slave to substitute for the Z-bar.

my email is rock at intrex dot net

If your bellhousing came out of a car, it may have the wrong clutch fork pivot. I just conquered that situation on my 64, and there was no way to get everything lined up with that pivot. A truck pivot (thanks again rock!) improved things immensely.

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"A mechanic is Somebody."
- Jim Preston

Nice to know. Thanks

Any chance you could post a pic of the bellhousing ball stud bracket you have and are using now? How about the z-bar? Is it the Volare z-bar?

F-body (Aspen/Volare) clutch parts are all different than A-body parts, and early A-parts may be different than later A-parts...frustrating, I know.

The z-bar tube should be horizontal and should rotate around it's long axis when mounted correctly.

Joe,

Man, thanks! Glad to know it worked! I was hoping it would be a plain old bolt up..was it? You have to have the car bells side by side with the truck one to see the difference, and I never saw the need for Mopar to do that..but theyARE slightly better engineers than I! I bet Joshie has one of his "family" pics of a set of all the bells, I wish I had made one when I had them all.

'64d100

Ah, no. I'm converting it to fit my use and it doesn't look much like it did.

I think it was a Volare piece. It had an extension like I had never seen before. Off the rear point there was a piece that bent out half an inch and extended back about an inch and a quarter - with a hole at the end and a green plastic liner in the hole. It looked like the pivot point for something - never figured what. My problem was mostly that the ball was too low.

The z-bar is original with the '65 Valiant.


Thanks