Alright. So backing up a bit... I was just under the car with some good light. I was not paying close attention the other day. There is a notch in the cross member. Feel a little silly that somehow I missed this.

So, I went back through all my pics and found the ones where I put the hump in.

I made more clearance with the grinder. It looks like it will work now, but things are still really close. What kind of clearance do you guys (with A-bodies!) have? There is very little clearance on the front of the cross member (where there is no notch).

The rods cannot be that far off, after all the shifter and rods were on the transmission when I got it.

I was also thinking some more, and the side cover and forks did change from when I mocked it up. I'll need to dig out the old side cover, but I don't see how the dimensions can be any different to affect the rod clearance.

Is it just these heavy duty rods? I am going to try to figure something out with the numbers on the rods. Try to see what I have for sure.

Some pics of the install. This was 10 years ago.