Tonight I got to drive my car for the first time in two weeks. Although I’m not completely done I’m done for today and figured I’d celebrate by tallying up what this cost me. All prices include what I paid for shipping if I couldn’t find it locally. It adds up quick:
Transmission 250.00
Transmission Hump 20.00
Clutch and Pressure Plate 351.00
Throwout Bearing 47.90
Resurface Flywheel 25.00
Bellhousing 117.51
Transmission Yoke 19.99
Shifter and Rods 314.25
Bearing Retainer 94.50
Driveshaft 70.00
Speedo Cable 26.00
Steering column 40.00
Shifter Boot 70.00
Carpet 154.37
Total $1,600.52
Now I think I got some good deals. A complete working A-body 833 for $250 and the floor hump for $20 was great. But $117.51 for a bellhousing and $94.50 for the bearing retainer, seal and gasket to make the standard 833 fit the late model bell made up for that.
Speaking of the bellhousing, I believe it came out of an Aspen or Volare as it works with the 121-tooth flywheel and is aluminum. To make it work I had to make new brackets for the fork and the ball-stud.
Being impatient I bought a brand new Hurst Competition Plus shifter and a set of B-Body rods and tabs (more on that later) then scored a pair of 833 OD units, one of which came with a shifter and rods. I had also bought an Inland shifter from an A-body with a console, but once I had it bolted to the transmission and felt how sloppy it was I ordered the new shifter.
Of course you can take $265 off that total for the column, carpet and boot, they’re not even in the car yet, but without them it would be pretty noisy in there. Not to mention I would probably grab the wrong shifter half the time.
So if you factor in that stuff in you can definitely do this cheaper. If I had known that I was going to run into another good deal for the OD units and shifter I probably would have waited. But after my quick ride tonight, I can say it was well worth the money and effort.
Some pics:
833:
Inland Shifter that didn't make the cut:
B-Body rods and mounting plate made to fit an A-body. The B-body plate mounts the shifter more upright allowing the rods to be straighter with less of an angle for the first and third positions.
How I drove it:
The column still needs to be swapped, the speedo cable installed, the clutch inspection plate is still on the bench, and of course the carpet and boot will quiet it all down a bit. That all said being able to down shift into first and the extra gears make it so much nicer to drive.
