It's always fun to read my last post and see how wrong I was.
I did manage to get the exhaust done. MUCH better clearance and I can finally put this to bed. Shortest clearance on the whole truck is now 5.75" which I think is pretty good. It may sound high for some but this truck has a 110" wheelbase (+13" more than my 510) so the smallest of variance on the ground can close that distance pretty quick.
- ExhaustClearance_1.jpg (125.5 KiB) Viewed 1029 times
- ExhaustClearance_2.jpg (127.69 KiB) Viewed 1029 times
Where the surprise came was with the CD009 top mount shifter. After reinstalling the tail section with the new coupler, I still wasn't getting all the gears... or so I thought!
- ShiftCouplerInterference.jpg (135.79 KiB) Viewed 1029 times
First mistake was that I didn't properly go through all of the how-to videos (when the video is near the end and switches to their rear-mount after several minutes on the top mount - you would think they're done eh?). It turns out the rear tail section has to get some clearance for the coupler as it butts directly against the casing and can pop out of gear due to vibration. Yeah, I had to redo the whole procedure...
- TailCasingClearance.jpg (220.89 KiB) Viewed 1029 times
I didn't take a pic but one above is off their site and is close to what mine looked like. Unfortunately, this STILL didn't give me all the gears. I couldn't get 5th gear, nor reverse. Those of you familiar with CD009 aftermarket shifters might start to see my issue here...
After chatting with the patient Autosports Engineering owner it turns out I was indeed getting reverse, and was in fact completely skipping 5th and 6th. The easiest way to explain is via pics (this is a 13" long shift lever length BTW), let's just sway the 'shortened' shift distance between gates is
insanely short.
- 1st.jpg (155.11 KiB) Viewed 1029 times
First gear (left gate)
- 3rd.jpg (134.6 KiB) Viewed 1029 times
Third gear (middle gate)
- 5th.jpg (149 KiB) Viewed 1029 times
Fifth gear (right gate) - which turned out I was completely skipping and going straight into reverse (far right gate).
This throw distance is skewed compared to fore/aft throw within each gate.
- 3rd_Fore.jpg (154.41 KiB) Viewed 1029 times
- 4th_Aft.jpg (153.83 KiB) Viewed 1029 times
After mentally recalibrating to the shifter's actual throws, I can now rifle through all the gears nicely. The kit provides a hard stop that prevents hitting the far-right gate (reverse) unless you explicitly push the shifter down under the hard stop. It's not installed, but I'll definitely put that back on before the cab gets put back on.
The last part I'm waiting for is a GKTech S13 brass shifter bushing. The Autosports Engineering kit uses the S13 plastic bushing but given the hassle to access the shifter top plate (yes, perhaps a design oversight by yours truly) I'll go ahead and get a more permanent setup which everything is accessible.
I've since done a bit more wire harness relocation/protection and the chassis is pretty much done. I'll do one more fire up of the VQ to make sure all sensors are happy and then my focus will be almost exclusively on the cab/wiring for the rest of this month.