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Transmission Tunnel Rework Continued

With the basic tunnel completed I needed to make a hole for the shifter. I slowly opened up the hole until it cleared the shifter and the shifter swing. The hole was rather large due to the shifter arm and the need to be able to install the shifter from inside the cab so it was obvious that I needed to make a local bulge in the tunnel to close up the opening.

I decided to make a top ring around the shifter and then fill in the lower area as required. I cutout and tacked the upper ring in position and then made some templates to fill in the sides. Once I had it all tacked in place then I went ahead and finished welding the seams.

With the tunnel pretty much completed I needed to figure out the transition to the firewall. After a few attempts at making a template I finally zeroed in on a pattern that worked and looked ok. So I cut the piece out in metal and formed it to fit. It was then time to weld in the tunnel as far as I could. I went ahead a sprayed the seams with weld thru primer and plugwelded the tunnel into place. Next I just tack welded the firewall transition piece into place. I will weld and grind the rest of the seams when I take the body off the chassis a little later.

Next up is to put in the steering column, brake pedal and seat and figure out the throttle pedal mounting.