I have picked up a 1982 z24 with t10 trans. Someone has attempted to repair and modify the zbar and the clutch will no longer disengage.
I have looked to no avail to find a new zbar. Are they still available and if so where, or would it be more economical to put in a t5 and hydrolic clutch set up.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Brien

 

They often break.

It's easy to swap over to the hydraulic system. After decades of driving 4-speed cars and hating the problems I always had with linkage (binding, noise, falling apart, breaking, having to adjust it, etc. etc. etc.), and then buying the car I have now (83 Z28) which came with the same crap, I could not WAIT to modernize it when an alternative became available. I think it must have been in about 86 or 87 I found a wrecked 84 Z28 in the junkyard, and snarfed the necessary goodies from it. It is SO MUCH better!!!

I got tired of looking at the old linkage laying around being useless and threw it in the trash while cleaning out my garage once, about 10 or 12 years ago.

All you need is the bell housing; the COMPLETE pedal assembly including any brackets and switches and so on, as well as the pedals themselves and the bracket they live in; and the hydraulic assembly. The hyd parts you can buy from GM, new, pre-filled and pre-bled, for around $120. All you'll have to do is to enlarge the push rod hole in the firewall a little, and drill 2 holes for the U-bolt thing that holds the MC in. Everything just bolts right in. Piece of cake, especially if the engine is out.

Since you're starting with a 82 4-speed car, you'll need a different (shorter) drive shaft, and a 83-up crossmember which bolts on in a different place so you'll have to add a pair of bolt holes to your car. I'm not sure about the torque arm & bracket. Just get all that stuff from your T-5 donor car.

Try to find a 88-up TPI car as the donor; that will have the 2nd design T-5, and the better gear ratios (especially 5th).

 

I just bought a Howe hydraulic throwout bearing kit, used from a guy. That's how i'm upgrading my T-10 mech linkage. I don't like how it seems "choppy", but this is the first mechanical linkage car i've ever driven. It seems to engage... clunky.

FYI the T5 is significantly weaker than a T-10, but has OD. So decide which one is more important to you. (me? Strength. I have an Olds for highway )

Side note - This means in the near future i'll be tearing out my z-bar setup and tossing it. So if you decide you want one, I could always sell ya mine.

It might just be out of adjustment though. Are you sure it's gibbled beyond repair?

 

I really need to keep cost down right now so I guess I'll be waiting on the conversion.
The problem about the zbar is I know it has been modified, but I have now idea what it looked like originally, and I don't have anything to compare it to for even checking the angles.
Yes I would be interested in your set-up.

 

My engine and tranny are out, so I can get good clear pictures (once I dust off the snow), but since it's not bolted to anything, it's somewhat meaningless.

Are you in any rush? I've got a roadtrip to make this weekend up north, but next weekend I could probably get it out.
$50 + shipping sound fair? The part's useless to me, but $50 is about the motivation I need to blow a few hours of my saturday turning wrenches in the snow.
Let me know.

 

Any pictures are better than non at all.
Price sounds good.
I know the felling of working out in the cold. Really sucks.
Thanks.

 

Lets take this to email then.
Shoot me an email to remind me. I'll try and snag my camera from work for the weekend.

 

Lakewood makes a nice steel bellhousing that allows you to use either the mechanical likeage or hydraulic linkage for the clutch, and both the 4-spd and 5-spd manual trans's can bolt up to it (dual bolt patterns).

I'd start with that bellhousing if you don't like the mechanical linkage - keep the 4-spd (if its really a T10 then its the strongest manual trans the 3rdgens came with) and use the hydraulic linkage from the later years. If you decide you want the 5-spd for some reason, it will bolt right up to that bellhousing too (the T10 and T5 use the same clutch too, so you wouldn't even have to take the bellhousing off to swap the T10 for a T5!).

 

I haven't forgotten about this, it's just been colder than sin. Ok, I sorta forgot.
It's supposed to get warm here in the next few days, you still need some pictures of this?

 

I located one picture on the net, but a couple more would be great.
No rush though. Wait until it warms up a bit.
Thanks

 

HEY!!!!! theres one on ebay right now! im winning the bid, i already have one.so ill hold off on bidding if you want to bid?-Art

 

Vazqual has been pm'ing me, maybe he can cut/paste my last msg to him, I gave an explanation as to how it works.

I'm in a rush to leave town here, it's my birthday today and I need to get out and throw some loonies at some nice strippers today.

So i've got 4 pictures total, I only circled on the first one.

Red - That's the clutch pedal coming through the firewall. Connects to the z-bar via that cotter pin

Green - I'm looking BEHIND the speedo cable there, that's the two bolts that hold the bracket down. Mine are seized like crazy, that's why this is still in the car now...

Purple - that's the stud that goes into the block. It's a round ball that's inside the tube. You can see the mess of grease around it there.

Lower green... uhh "circle" - That's the flat bar that goes down.. duh. I forget what I referred to it as in the msg Vazquel....

Blue arrow - You can see the return spring (hooks to that hole in the a-arm mounting area of the Kmember, and onto the clutch fork in the tranny. Keeps the rod from just falling down. The blue arrow also points to the clutch actuating rod. Mine looks funny because once upon a time it seemed to short so I took it to work, cut it, and welded in a length of rod to make it longer. Turns out the clutch had gotten stuck, that's why I thought it was too short. Jiggled it, popped into place, now I have this rod that's WAYYYY long, and the end of the threads hit my DS header. Oh well.

Other pictures give better views. I'm gone for the weekend, but i'm sure other members here can give insight as to how it works, if you need help right away (Air_adam, sofakingdom, etc).

 

Last one.

Notice i'm in the LOWER hole in the flat bar. The upper hole is for adjustment purposes. I can scan & post the adjustment instructions from my helm manual if need be, but they aren't that great, and I wouldn't use it.

 

are the studs in the ends replaceable? because my bar is missing them?

 

when a buddy of mine put a 400sbc into an 82 firebird with 4 speed manual factory we used an iron bellhousing from a 72 and older truck haha

we had to dent the floorboard a bit but we got it to work lol


this was way back years ago in my earlier vehicle ruckus days lol

his car, i helped and supplied the bellhousing and parts since i was only into classic trucks at the time and it was way before i got the 82 and i think any third gen f body even hmmm, not sure about that though, i might have gotten the first 82 bird before then hmmm

 

Which studs in the ends? What part are you talking about?

 

the stud in the end of the zbar.theres a nylon bushing then a ball stud then another nylon bushing than a snap ring and then a felt or rubber seal,installed into the zbar in that order.these items are installed it the end that is on the frame side not on the engine side? ohh HAPPY BDAY SONIX!!!!!

 

I'm not sure if it's replaceable. I couldn't even find a snap ring in mine.
See if you can buy another ball stud I suppose, I don't even know where you'd get one...?
I won't be tearing this out of the car anytime soon, it's a bit chilly for that. But when I do, if you still need more info on it, i'll shoot you a note.

 

The one that goes to the block is. You can probably still buy that at GM, since the same one fits just about everything that has a Z-bar.

The one at the "frame" end is not. Or, that is, it's not "seviceable" as a part you can buy, at least. When I bought a new Z-bar once to try to cure the stupid problem(s) that those always have (friction, that strange "hitch" in their action that makes the pedal come up in little jerks instead of a smooth fluid motion, noise, slack, etc.), it came with the new ball in the frame end already in it. I don't remember how it was retained, a snap ring makes sense though. I do recall, it even had the 2 little sort of foam like grease seal things stuck in the ends that I had never seen before, which then lasted about 2 weeks before they failed and got pushed out the ends outside the bar and then all the grease came out again and ddirt got in and it rapidly went back to being just like the old one had been. I was POed.

 

do you recall where you bought a new zbar from?

 

GM....

This was probably over 30 years ago. Wasn't for this car. It was for some old 4-speed car I had. I had quite a few of those before I bought this 83 I still have.

I got rid of that Stone Age linkage crap in it the VERY FIRST TIME I saw a hyd car in the junkyard; must have been about 86 or 87, a 84 L69 car. Sad. But its parts got recycled: I got all the clutch stuff and one of my little brothers got the rear. So that'll give you some idea of how long ago the other had to have been. The main reason I did that to my 83 right then, was because I had put a Ram clutch or something in it, a fairly high-pressure one, and I could see the whole firewall flex and the motor move forward and all that when I had somebody else sit in the car and push the clutch. The same stupid crap that those ancient things have always done...

I've changed body bushings on more than one car to get enough clutch travel to not grind gears, especially 1st and 2nd gen F bodies, because the whole body and subframe would shift so much from the force the clutch exerted, that it would use up at least a third of the total possible travel the linkage should have been capable of creating. One of my other little bros and I used to have a lively and profitable business rebuilding 4-speeds, and people would bring us their cars after they put their fresh rebuilds in complaining that it STILL ground in all the gears, and we'd have them watch while somebody pushed the clutch... that REALLY AMAZED some people to see that. Some cars, the engine and the firewall would move by over ¼" against each other, with some of the "slack" in the motor mounts and some in the body bushings. You could just stand there and watch the whole car "spread" around the linkage. They had NO IDEA their car was doing that. Needless to say, they were equally amazed when after no telling how many missed gears and lost races and clutch jobs and finally a trans rebuild for ground-up sleeves, the root cause of their woes was a handful of 75¢ rubber biscuits and a pair of $3 motor mounts.

That whole linkage thing is just so crude and stupid and obsolete and an overall bad design, I hope I NEVER see another one. The hydraulics is a HUGE improvement. It's about like using a heat pump to heat a house, compared to having an open fire pit in the middle of the living room floor.

 

This is EXACTLY why i'm replacing mine with a hydraulic TO bearing. It jerks it's way upwards. Greasing it religiously helps a fair bit, and stiff poly bushings would help too I imagine. There are cars out there sucessfully using a mechanical linkage I imagine, you just have to make sure everything is pretty rigid. Remember that the engine/tranny usually have some movement relative to the chassis of the car (or else the car would vibrate like CRAZY. Think solid motor mounts). Anyway, if the engine torques and moves relative to the car, now your clutch linkage, and shifter linkage isn't in the perfect alignment you set it up to That makes shifting tricky when you're under a lot of power. Let me tell you all about that....

 

Thanks for the pics.
Been working lots of hours and not had much free time lately for the camaro.
Unfortunately I was working and missed the one on ebay. Thanks though.