[DomSmith]

After a particularly harsh tantrum about getting stuck on the Toll Road near Rosarito and the heavy right foot that followed while making my own exit, I realized the violent shaking of the cruiser was not a good sign. I got it back to our Baja 1000 Home Base and took stock. I determined that 3 of the 4 threads on the Chevy aluminum bell housing stripped out (the bolts were missing) and would eventually come to find out that a crack developed on the driver’s side near the slave cylinder. Aside from the massive shaking while limping it home across the border, I needed to find out what collateral damage had been done. With a ton of other things on my plate and knowing full well this would take a ton of my time it sat in the garage waiting...

Until finally I had decided what to do. It would get an H55 5 Speed. So the project begins:



I disconnected the battery, drained the fuel tank and proceeded to remove the seats, fuel tank, etc...

The PO had done the 350 conversion on the cheap, so the motor is stuffed against the firewall with a few obvious hammer marks to clear the headers.

Here's the tranny hump with current tranny/transfer shift positions...