What is everyone using for a repro clutch rod boot? I bought one from Year One last year, and it is really not usable, there must be something better out there. Mark
Cheryl and George, thanks for the replys. Cheryl, I'll try Ground Up, I checked their website last week, but I didn't see a picture of that part, just the part number. I also have a friend looking for NOS to see if he can come up with anything. George, I'm still looking for the fork boot. Also trying NOS for that, but I've been looking for some time now. My reproduction efforts didn't work out on that, the upfront costs were too much for my wallet alone. If we could get the same group together for a second shot at it, I may try again, but we have to come up with a price people will be willing to pay for it, and again put together a list of people. So far, looking at the 65 park light lense project, and the steering wheel repros, nothing has come from either of those yet. Years ago, Mitch Romanowski was going to repro the hood ornaments for the 65s, but he couldn't get enough interest to do those either. Maybe the early GTOs and Chevelles will be become so expensive to buy in the near future that some will migrate to the Olds/Buick and maybe of these parts will be made available. Mark
Mark, here's a pic of the original off a '66 Special, next to the repo boot sold by Ames. The pic in the Ground-up catalog looks similar the the Ames piece....but it's not a good picture. I also checked Fusick Olds....they don't offer a 64-67 boot. The Ames piece (Pontiac) does have a metal sleeve insert. It does fit over the GS clutch rod.
Walt, My old boot looks exactly like the one on the left, only in worse shape than that one. The repro I bought is exactly like the one on the right. I've come to the conclusion that there is one supplier for this part, probably Metro because they list this exact part, and they manufacture all they're own stuff. I'm thinking about buying the reproduction metal ring for the boot, and trimming as necessary to get the boot to fit. What a waste of time and money. If anyone has tried to fit that boot into the stock "ring", you'll know what I mean. Also Walt, someone makes those pedal pads that are right, when I run across it I'll post it. Mark
I ran across and interesting outfit called 3D Moldless Technology here:3D I will contact them about the clutch pivot ball boot and this other one if anyone is interested. Maybe get them to make some radiator hoses too :grin: Ted
Ted, I used the repro clutch rod boot. The Paddock makes a repro boot "ring", so I bought that and it seems to work with the new boot. What the 65-66 nailhead manual trans crowd really needs is the boot that goes on the bellhousing. I have one that is missing a couple of chunks, so someone would need to provide one thats whole. Just a thought. Mark
the boot that goes on the bellhousing is the one I want- just describing it poorly as "clutch pivot ball boot " Ole Matt Menges bought the only NOS one that I knew about a few years ago. I think the one I have is whole enough to send. I'll see what they say. Ted
It gets confusing when you start looking for 65-66 clutch linkage parts. I had a '66 skylark with a 3 - speed manual, it had a rubber clutch fork boot. My '66 skylark /GS uses a throwout shaft that runs through the bellhousing, and uses a dust boot that surrounds the ball and arm that extend from the bellhousing. All the extra monkey motion was required to fit the 401 into the skylark chassis.
It is an oddity but that monkey motion was on the 63 - 65 big car clutch linkages too... so preceeding the pain of fitting into the Skylark frame...maybe for fitting into the X frame that the Wildcat had in '63? Seems like a strong design with the shaft for the throwout bearing supported at both ends rather than pivoting on a ball.
