I have an '87 B350 conversion van. I've now driven it over 30,000 miles, 23,300 in the USA and Canada and the rest here in Australia.

When I bought it I immediately converted it from automatic to manual. I much prefer driving a manual, and I figured I'd save some fuel using the A833 overdrive transmission. This necessitated getting a flywheel 'externally balanced' and fitting clutch pedal and linkages, all of that stuff. A friend in Spokane WA found an A833 overdrive in a slant 6-powered van of a similar model and obtained all the bits for me. The pedals, linkages, Z-bar, transmission, shifter, the bracket bolted onto the front crossmember which mounts the bell-crank for the rods, everything except, of course, the flywheel, clutch and bellhousing.

Talk about taking 'coals to Newcastle'! I had to carry a bellhousing in my luggage from Australia because they had become so expensive to buy in the US by 2014 that the ones I had bought seven or eight years early from the US (we never had A833s in Australia in anything) were way less expensive. Jon had a pressure plate lying around and I took over the clutch plate too.

It didn't take much work to fit, though the pedal was a tricky thing to do. I drove it 14,400 miles (38 states and 7 provinces of Canada) on that trip then parked it in Spokane to await my next trip. All was well. Then my second trip took me 8,900 miles (22 states, 2 provinces) and by the time I was halfway through that one the gearbox was starting to sound a bit gravelly. I bought another A833 overdrive out of a slant 6 pickup in Arkansas just in case I needed to change it before I shipped the van home.

Once I as home I changed that gearbox, the Arkansas box was in very good shape and all was happiness. A little while later I detected clutch slip, so when I set out on a big trip to Central Australia (8,600 miles) I took a spare clutch plate. And I needed it, changing it in a deserted shed out in the South Australian desert where the local horse racing people had abandoned their racing...



...as I had taken all the necessary tools with me too. It was an interesting day because I learned that the real problem was the pressure plate. This was a finger-type and it must have been out of adjustment (ie. one finger applying either more or less pressure than the others) as there was serious wear on one side:



If only I'd taken one of my spare pressure plates!

Needless to say, this maladjusted pressure plate caused further problems, principally in that I could never get a complete release and this meant that going into first or reverse gears would graunch the gears. Graunching the gears meant that filings would be generated, they would circulate in the oil and get into the bearings and by the time I got home that beautifully silent A833 was a long way from silent.

As I had been on that trip as a working venture and it was nicely remunerative, I decided to 'bulletproof' it all and set about finding and buying an NV4500. It cost a lot of money, way more than the van cost me initially, and it cost more when I got it shipped to Australia because of government charges and taxes adding up to $640 of the total of $740 to ship it!

The next issue is the conversion of the clutch to hydraulic. No real option to this with the NV4500. So I've been fabricating bits to make this possible. There is no option of putting the master cylinder on the firewall ahead of the clutch pedal as that's in the region where the battery and the big power booster are located. So the plan is to change the function under the floor, starting where the pull-rod would normally go into the Z-bar.

The Z-bar will be removed and a bell-crank hung down from the floor to provide an adjustable base from which a further pull-rod will go to a lever which operates the master cylinder. This will all be mounted in a steel box I'm making with adjustable mounting points on that lever too so I can get the right travel. I had already changed all the rods to use spherical rod ends, so two more of these will be used.

Here's the fabrication so far, starting with the front of the box to which the master cylinder will actually bolt up:





Finally, with the 'core' of the operating lever in place. Note that it's operating at the same angle as the master cylinder:



By the way, that lever and also the core of the bell-crank I've made are both adapted from pedals from a Peugeot 504. In fact, all of this is pretty much made up from things I have lying around. The box itself is either 18g or 20g steel cut from some department store display shelving. Hence that nice lip at the bottom of the box and the fine 90° bends at the corners. Other bits are made from RHS tubing I've sliced up using the angle grinder.

As it stands it's all held together with TEK screws, but they'll be undone one at a time and the holes welded up, thus spot-welding the whole thing together. Other holes will be drilled so there will be more spot-welds and those mitre joints at the bottom will be welded up.

I'm progressing with this as we're subject to very restricted outside movement due to the virus. The gearbox, clutch and hydraulics are all about 600 miles from me and I can't go there to get it. When we can move I will drive there and do the installation there because it's at the home of a friend who had more gear than I have... mill, lathe, better welding gear and a lot of experience at fabrication... he used to build racing cars for a living.

I'll update as I make more progress.

 

Would it be easier to put in hydraboost and make room for the master on the firewall?

 

Wow - cool. That is so much work!!!!

 

1st my congrats on your conversion to manual. You seem to be well on your way with conversion to hydraulic clutch & the fabricated mount for the master cylinder looks good. One thing confuses me: I have an '89 Dodge Ram van with a factory 5-spd manual & hydraulic clutch. You say there's no room on the firewall, but it's on mine to the left of the brake booster, beneath the clutch fluid reservoir. There's a picture of it in my album page.

Good luck with the project. I wish I could take my van on a cross country trip - gas is $1.50/gal.

 

Well, I was working from memory there, the van is 80 miles from where I live and I know I have stuck my head down in those quarters and found it very tight. It would mean, of course, extending the pressure line between the master cylinder and the slave cylinder, and it would surely mean mucking around in that super-tight area where the clutch pedal hangs among all sorts of wires and connectors and stuff.

I will have a look at your page...

Meantime, here's a pic of the poor neglected bell crank setup pulled apart to see why there was lots of slop in it:

 

Just goes to show, doesn't it?

Your master cylinder is operated by a lever on the other end of the clutch pedal shaft. I only thought of it going straight forward from the pedal.

If I don't have to extend that pressure line to the slave cylinder, I might just plan to use this method myself. Next time I go over to the shed where the van is I'll have a good look around things.

Neat '89, by the way. Is that a Getrag gearbox?

Have you, by the way, checked out my thread about my travels?

https://dodgeforum.com/forum/members...g-with-me.html

 

I just had a thought about this...

Would it be possible for you to get a pic or two of the setup where the rod attaches to the lever inside the van?

I suspect that might be of immense help to me. Also, if you can, the distance from the centre of the pedal shaft (where the pedal pivots) to the centre of the bolt/clevis or whatever that goes into the driver's end of the clutch pushrod?

 

I've now had a chance to look at the firewall in my van...

There is no provision there for the master cylinder, I'm thinking the firewall pressing was changed between the '87 and '89 models, I'm also thinking that if there was intended to be a mount there for a master cylinder it would be double-skinned in that immediate area.

Photos of one with the master cylinder mounted would certainly clear this up.

 

The gearbox is stock Chrysler (NP 2500, I believe), 5-spd OD, all sync'd (except reverse). The previous 4-spd models had external shift linkage, mine's all internal shift rails. I had it apart once. The Van's parked in a garage where I have to move a few things to get it out. I plan to have it out this weekend & will take some pics.

 

Thank you I look forward to seeing how it all goes together.