Ok, I am doing the last things before taking it to the muffler shop. The last thing under the car is the transmission linkage. Since the transmission is about 1.5 inches father back, I know I need to extend it. I had heard from someone that you can just straighten it out and it might be long enough. The instructions I got from others have been to cut and extend it at the straight part of the bar. What have others done? Andyrew? BigKat? John2k? I need suggestions and if anyone has actually straightened the bar? Lets hear it guys. I am in the last stage of the game.

My transaxle mounted 1.25" to the rear I added a extension to the shift rod. Works good I tried to make a straight one and had no luck.

Bob

Steve just cut the bar on a straight part, and welded in an extention.. Pretty simple... Just weld in the right length...

Or.................you could do what I did.
The shift linkage bar is basically a metal tube with solid rods jammed in either end, with a tack weld to hold them in place.
i ground off the tack being very carefull to maintain the index (not to turn the rod), pulled it out about 5/8" of an inch, and re-welded it. Then I test fitted it, did some bending to get around the headers, engine, mount, etc and calculated how much more I needed to lengthen it, then did the same thing with the other end.
Took about an hour total.
the car always shifted just fine without any problems at all.

In the materials I got from John, which he got from Renegade, they suggest doing exactly what Sammy describes, but adding more like 1.5 inches IIRC. Scribe a line so you keep the sections oriented properly, then grind the tack off, pull it out, and re-tack.

I can check on the amount they suggest to pull it out when I get home.

Well, I took a scribe and made 3 lines on it lengthwise down the tube and cut it, then I put in a piece of round solid steel and made the bar exactly 1.5 inches longer. I hope it fits. I do have another one of these bars so if I screwed it up I got another chance at it. We will see.

Ok, here it is all modified and painted. As soon as the paint dries I will try it and see how it fits. This should be the last thing underneath there I need to do. Then its time to go back and double check everything. Everything has been changed, rebuilt or new, and modified from stock. I especially want to go back over the entire front suspension to make sure I didnt forget anything. And the brakes, I would consider those important.

What a dufus, I forgot the pic.

Just out of curiosity how did you guys mount the engine 1.5 inches back? Aren't the tranny mounts non-adjustable? Does this mean that the output flanges on your transmission are not in line with your rear hubs? My 20b engine should fit fine without the transmission in the stock position but if it ends up being too close to the firewall I would like to know there is an option. Thanks.

There are special tranny mounts available, or you can fabricate your own. The flanges do end up behind the hubs. There seems to be some disagreement whether 1.25 or 1.5 inches is the maximum you can move the trans back before the CV joints bind at full suspension travel.

Andyrew: Could your tramission be too far back and causing the axles to bind when under torque load? Just wondering......

I don't quite understand the 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 distance either. Except that it positions the shifter closer to the driver.
We're using the kit front motor mount, (I'll just guess Renegade). Seems to mount correctly. The fore and aft alignment isn't bad, but the up and down is a bit off. The trans mounts we used moved the trans down about 1"+.

It would seem that the shift rod could be shorter. But ours looks similar to Scotts and seems to work fine.

The binding has definatly crossed my mind. But it seems right.

I just banged on the kink and loosened up the weld and extended it like Sammy....the PO on mine had a issue with 2 and 4th....

Measure the plates that extend the transaxle back. My bolt holes are 1.25" center to center on the bolt holes. I really don't think a 1/4 of a inch would make any difference. The important thing is to have the the rod indexed correct. When I made a straight rod I got the index off and could not adjust it out with the shifter adjustment.

That is why I made the 3 parallel lines with a scribe before I cut it. That way I could line it back up the way it was with the extension welded in.

Just for future thread searchers, the Renegade recomendation is to extend the rod 1 1/4 inches.

Scott had already done the work last night by the time I got home, so I wasn't in a huge hurry about posting that little tidbit. I agree that 1/4 +/- shouldn't make any differernce that can't be compensated for with the standard adjustment methods.