| 05-05-2012 |
I didn't have a tap to fit the shifter ball to redrill it for the Lokar adapter on the shifter handle so I went down to my neighbor's house and he had the right size tap. While I was there he went ahead and ran the tap for me. The brass insert bushing made it pretty easy, straightforward work and the end result looks like this, you just push down on the ball to shift out of park (as mentioned before, this is a shifter ball that my dad has had in our house for years and years):
Today I went over a couple towns away with my friend to his uncle's house. My friend, Erik, has a newer GTO and his uncle is building a 40 Packard 4 door with the same motor and tranny as our car. He had been using the GTO exhaust manifolds he got from Erik after Erik went with headers. I borrowed them to see if they would fit. Turns out, they will not. The flange on mine hits right at the frame rail and I was hoping with a different angle and being tucked in a bit closer, the GTO manifolds would give me the clearance I need. These have worked for a lot of guys, but not this guy. They presented an entirely different problem of hitting the framrail in a new place, so it looks like I'm going to have to go with block hugger headers.
GTO manifolds on top, truck manifolds on bottom.
