[Tremec 5 speed in 63 Avanti]

I am just finishing up the installation of a modern 5 speed manual transmission in my '63 Avanti, a Tremec TR-3550. I bought one of Dan Giblin's kits, and carried out the installation using the one performed by Tom Rautio as a guide (a fairly detailed article describing the install can be found here: Studebaker Avanti TKO 5 speed install how to)

Since I used the exact same TR-3550 transmission Rautio did (the older TR-3550 as opposed to the newer TKO 500 or 600), the installation was almost identical in every way (almost because my car started life as an automatic, and I had to get new pedals and all the clutch linkage parts, and install them first). Since my transmission was a used unit, it came with a Steeda Tri Ax shifter attached, but that one could not be modified in the same way that the Pro 5 shifter used in Rautio's install was; the cylindrical part of the housing was too big, and sticks too far forward, and the shifter simply could not be made to fit without cutting the car, which I was determined to avoid. Rather than acquire a Pro 5 and modify it the same way as the one in this install, by removing the shifter stop plate and fabricating a new top with low profile bolts, and then shortening the shifter stub and fabricating an appropriate offset, I began looking around for a ready-made low profile shifter. I saw the Hurst Blackjack, and it looked ideal. But they don't make it for a TR-3550. Fortunately, McLeod Racing makes the perfect shifter for this application. It fits perfectly, with no modification. They make literally thousands of slightly different units, to fit just about any conceivable application, but if anyone is interested in doing this install, and wants to know which shifter to buy, the part number for the one that fits the TR-3550 equipped Avanti is 83-421-254-01. It has a 2.8 inch rear offset, and no lateral offset, but a small spacer bolted between the shifter handle and shifter stub solves that problem. As an added bonus, the McLeod shifter is made with belleville washers instead of normal coil springs, and they supposedly have a much longer fatigue life, so it should never wear out. It wasn't cheap, but isn't that much more than a new Pro 5, and works out to less, I'm sure, if one has to pay anyone else to do the modification to the Pro 5.

So my Avanti should be back on the road early next week, with the new transmission installed, and all set for my driving enjoyment. This is going to be a great Christmas!

[Clutch fork needed]

Does anyone know for sure the Larks and the Avanti forks are the same?

jack vines

They should be. The transmission was standard across more than one model. And I know the clutch pedal assembly was the same for the Lark, Champ, and Avanti.

Oddly enough, right after I posted this, Nimesh Solanki, who built me engine, informed me that he has one of these clutch forks. I may still need to find other suppliers for the ancillary parts, however, as there are brackets, retainers, and fittings that go along with this.

[Clutch fork needed]

I am about to put a five speed in my car. I have almost everything I need to do it, but as I am converting from an automatic, not a 3 or 4 speed manual, I need certain parts the car lacks. Does anyone know a good source for a clutch fork and the small parts associated with it? I already have a clutch pedal assembly, but I need the clutch fork, and so far have not had any luck finding one.

[Need help with stalling problem]

Billy, I know this is stating the obvious but why not just replace the camshaft with one that behaves better. A lot cheaper than switching to a 5-speed and still having all the issues you described. I too wanted a five-speed in my 83 but finally figured a 200R4 AOD would serve better.

I intend to replace the camshaft and put in the five speed. I always intended to put in the five speed. Before I ever contacted Nimesh to get the engine from him, I planned on putting in a five speed. Lots of owners have used Dan Giblin's kit to put Tremecs in their Studebakers, looking for better performance and driveability, just as lots of other muscle car owners have put five speeds in their old rides for similar reasons. I want the overdrive. I like to take my cars places, and driving several hours at a stretch at steady 3600rpm, with loud exhaust is fatiguing, not to mention the difficulty of hearing passengers or the radio. And it would also be nice to be able to pass by at least a couple of gas stations without having to stop and refill the tank. The overdrive will also mean less wear on the engine, in the long run, as well as the alternator, water pump, supercharger, and everything else attached to the engine that turns along with it.

The TR3550 will give me the overdrive, and is a good transmission, strong enough for the engine I've got. And I just plain like driving a manual better than an automatic, especially in a car like the Avanti.

I also have a significant cam in it with a lot of duration and lead but it does not have the issues you are having with your R2. But mine is an SBC that has the stall speed and manifold to handle it.

Let me make a recommendation. Ask the folks at Racingstudebakers.com to advise you on a better all around camshaft or if you choose to not go that route on RS, there are several individuals on the SDC forum that can also help. Both Jack Vines and Mike Van Vieghten (sp?) have been building high performance Stude engines for a long time and you could email one of them. Jack and Mike are on both sites.

An Avanti that runs like yours takes a lot of fun out of the great experience of driving a well performing car. Mine is a blast as I can leave big long marks if I like or run down the road at low speeds or even sit and idle for long periods. I'll bet in the end you will lose little if any performance with a better stick.

Bob

I've already spoken with Phil Harris at Fairborn Studebaker. I may contact some of the other you suggest.

[Need help with stalling problem]

Your carburetor probably needs to be jetted to match the new cam profile. You could also have a dashpot out of adjustment or it could need replacing. There could be a vacuum leak. The distributor could also benefit from being curved to match the cam profile. If it's the original Prestolite distributor, it may have worn bushings...a common problem. Some of what I'm saying may have little to nothing to do with your immediate problem, but addressing all these more or less minor things can result in a noticeable increase in drivability and performance.

We did all that. In the two months my second mechanic had the car, he checked everywhere for vacuum leaks; checked the distributor; rebuilt the sealed Carter AFB with a kit from Myer's Studebaker; replaced the sealed Carter AFB with an Edelbrock 1406 (with marine grade seal installed in the accelerator pump), which helped a little; adjusted both carbs extensively, looking to get it just right. We really left no stone unturned We've got it about as good as we can get it. As I said, I expect the transmission change will make things a little better, since the car will either be in neutral, or I'll have my foot on the gas. And it has a lumpy idle, but in neutral it doesn't tend to stall out.

I still think the cam, in my case, is a little more radical than I want to live with for what will be almost entirely a street car. Aside from the rough idle, the engine only makes 5 inches of vacuum, for example, so I had to put a vacuum pump and vacuum reservoir on the car to get my brakes back. And even in neutral, when the transmission's not putting a load on the engine, the engine has to be set to idle a little faster than a smoother idling car would in order not to stall out, which makes vapor lock a little more likely. I imagine a rough idle will make starting and running in cold weather a bit more challenging as well, at least until the engine gets completely warmed up.

[Need help with stalling problem]

I experienced a vapor lock problem with my Avanti just a couple of hours ago. I just took the car back yesterday, after a very, very long delay, from having one of Nimesh Solanki's R2 engines put in it. The delay was caused partly by the first mechanic I got (someone recommended to me) being incompetent and a procrastinator. I turned the job over to a very good mechanic, but he had the car longer than expected because getting it to run right proved something of a problem. I ordered the engine from Nimesh with one of his performance-oriented camshafts, and am now wishing I hadn't. Cars with radical cams never really idle well, but getting this engine's idle adjusted has been a real pain in the butt -- if you get it to where it idles smoothly, it wants to stall out when you drop it in gear; but if you get it to where the engine won't stall when it's idling in drive, it races in neutral. Nimesh has a similar camshaft in his car, but likely doesn't experience the problem because he's got a five-speed manual. I'm going to put one in my car as well (in fact I just bought a used Tremec TR3550 whose arrival I'm awaiting as I type this), but until then, I have to drive the car as a "two-footer," (left foot on the brake and right on the gas pedal) else the engine will quit when I'm slowing down to make a turn or stop at an intersection.

Well, after getting the car up on the interstate this morning (where it cruised along quite well), I got off at the ramp nearest my house, drove the half-mile or so to my street, and the engine died right at my driveway. I couldn't get the car restarted until I waited for it to cool down. I think the problem was that after that cruise, with the engine heated up, when I got off the ramp and had to wait at several lights, in 90 degree heat, with one foot on the gas to keep the engine idling above 1500rpm so it wouldn't stall out with that lumpy idle, the temperature climbed just enough. The engine never got close to overheating or anything, but it got hot enough to cause vapor lock.

I'm not going to get much enjoyment out of driving this car this summer until I find a solution to this. The five speed will help, I think, since I won't have to worry about a sudden dip in rpm going from neutral to drive the way an automatic does. But I think I'm going to go back to the stock camshaft. I like extra horsepower, but I am not liking what this cam is doing to driveability. The stock cam will probably be good enough, and should allow the engine to idle smoothly at lower rpms, which will help sitting in traffic, I think.

[R2 AC and hood clearance]

I have had a Nimesh Solanki R2 put in my Avanti R1, and upon his advice, wanting to retain my A/C for the hot Virginia summers, obtained a bracket from Rogers Protofab in Canada designed to permit a GM compressor to mount next to the alternator. I have two problems with this installation, and I am wondering if anyone else here has ever run into them. The engine is still a Studebaker V8 with the same external dimensions as my old engine, and the Rogers part is one he has made for several other Avanti owners, and this is no the first engine Nimesh has built, so I am wondering why the hell I am having these problems. The first is my hood won't close, and the second is none of the pulleys line up. I could understand why the alternator and compressor might not line up; the Rogers bracket is a non-standard part, and they might have departed from their usual specs. But the crank pulley and water pump and supercharger, which were all installed by Nimesh, aren't lining up either. I don't know about the power steering pulley, because it's not back on yet.

And even if I get the pulleys lined up, why does it look like I'm going to have to shim the body up in order to get my hood to close when nobody else doing this AC install has apparently had to do it? Anyone here got any experience with this? I'd appreciate any suggestions.

[Metric speedometer]

Thanks for the reply. I may never know how many of these metric speedometers there were, but at least the build sheet tells me one thing: the mileage (kilometerage?) on my speedometer is probably actual. Prior to getting the build sheet, I had assumed the most likely circumstance was that the owner who shipped it to Germany simply had the speedometer refaced to indicate kilometers rather than miles (there are places that offer such services) -- and the odometer was likely unaltered so it might actually indicate miles. But if this came from the factory that way, the odometer is almost certainly also calibrated in kilometers.

An interesting side effect of this was that I had to explain the history of this car in some detail to a kid I saw admiring it, in order to convince him that it was actually an American vehicle. He had looked through the window at the gauges and saw that speedometer, and what with his never having heard of Studebaker, and the unique appearance of the Avanti, he thought it was a European car.

[Metric speedometer]

Has anybody got any idea how rare the metric speedometer is? I've got one in my 1963 Avanti (marked up to 280kmh), which I thought was installed aftermarket, since I have paperwork that came with the car when I bought it that documents an owner taking it from the States to West Germany in 1975. I ordered the build sheet from the Studebaker National Museum, however, and it says the car's destination when ordered was Trieste, Italy, and it was ordered from the factory with a metric speedometer. I've never seen another one of these. Dan Booth, at Nostalgic Motor Cars, had never heard of one either, and he probably knows as much about these cars as anybody.

I don't know whether the car ever made it to Italy or not (I know a lot of people placed orders which they later canceled, because of production delays, so this one might not have got to its intended buyer), though I do know it was in Germany (and it had side marker lights installed just above the rear ends of the front bumpers -- probably to comply with European safety regs). It made it's way back across the Atlantic some years ago (don't know when), and had a California title, even though I bought it in New York City. I'm restoring it, and all the gauge bezels have rust, but the faces are okay. I want to take care of the rust, but I'd like to keep the metric speedometer, just because it's so unusual.