I just finished installing a T5 five speed transmission and all I can say is wow. I never would have tried the swap without all the great advice on Stovebolt. Lugnutz65 has a particularly helpful step by step guide. Thanks guys!
http://lugnutz65chevystepside.weebly.com/t5-info-page.htmlTom Langdon put it together and gave me a 0.63 final gear. This works great in my 3600. I think it came out of a 1983 Camaro V8 but he may have used a different tailpiece. The shifter now emerges from the floor about three inches closer to the seat. Tom recommended I find a 10.5” Valeo clutch. I had to buy a kit with a pressure plate to get the clutch disk but the new throughout bearing was too small for my clutch fork so I ended up reusing my old pressure plate and throughout bearing.
I've only got average skills but the install was pretty straightforward. The bellhousing stays on while swapping the clutch so that was a pain but not difficult. I bought a transmission jack at Harbor Freight for $80 after the 20% discount. I only needed it to go up and down twice so I took a gamble! It worked great and made the job much easier and safer.
The driveshaft needed to be shortened and mine was a two-piece. Rather than have two slip joints I had one long driveshaft made up so that got me down to one slip joint. I also made up a tranny support. I don’t know if the original tranny was supposed to have one but mine didn’t.
My old synchros were gone in third gear so shifting is now so much easier and the ratios now match modern driving. It’s still an old truck so I’ll avoid highways but at least now I can do an occasional 60 mph on a secondary road. The one thing I do miss is the click sound between gears that the shifter used to make…
George
