The shift lever sits pretty well relative to the 'dog-house' (I had no idea that's what that hump thing over the engine was called), it comes the closest in reverse where it could run into a bigger guy's leg, but it's fine for me, and sits a little closer to the driver side, so it's easy to get around when entering the back from the passenger side seat. Of course to get the doghouse off you have to shift it back into second or fourth.

The brake and shift pedals are basically the same size, and it does seem a little tight sometimes, the gas pedal is RIGHT next to the doghouse, my shoe constantly rubs on it when driving, and sometimes the toe of my shoe slips a little underneath the brake pedal when shifting, so big work boots might be a bit cumbersome at first but probably could be gotten used to. You can see the shift lever in this pic, taken as I was removing the 70's **** carpet that was in it.

 

Jeremiah the NP435 4spd and the 5spds have a different shifter location then your 4spd does. The shifter goes right into the top of the transmission case instead of being mounted on the tail shaft housing like yours.


BruteFord the shifter on the 5spds vans actually comes thru the dog house ( See the pics below ) . The 5 spds have a straight shift handle so dog house clearance while shifting isn't an issue. I won't know yet on the NP435 until I get it swapped in. I might need to modify the shape of the shifter handle. That's not a big deal to me. I'm going to be fabricating my own transmission crossmember anyways.










And I wear work boots ( and have wide feet ) and have never had an issue driving any 75-91 van. Now if you build a 96 or newer van they have a much narrower foot well. So you might run into a problem. Which is probably why they were never offered with a manual transmission.

 

Nahh I much prefer the older style, darn now I want to build a van.

 

I prefer the 75-91's too. But I'm stuck with my 96 E250 until I can get the 89 built. It's not easy finding decent 91 and older vans here in Minnesota. Especially the E350's!

 

Well I'm all talk anyway, I don't have the time to deal with the projects I have, let alone put together a 4WD diesel manual van. What I really want/need is a combination truck/van. A big enough interior to go from drivers seat to camping/sleeping in the back, but enough truck to tow a gooseneck trailer. I came to the conclusion long ago that I was better off starting with a truck base and going from there.

Hijack over.