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The Gran Sport Theme mandated a center console & floor shifter conversion for the RoadMonster project.

The Impala SS had a center console in ’94, and got a floor shifter in ’96.

I chose a center console / floor shifter out of a 2000 Olds Bravada.

The Blazer console will work too, but the Bravada console has faux wood trim that exactly matches the wood trim in the Roadmaster.

Also, the Bravada / Blazer console has two cup holders, a clutter tray, and a huge storage compartment.  In my opinion, it’s one of the most user friendly consoles that GM has ever made.  The cup holders and the clutter liner have replaceable rubber inserts.  I gotta tell you, I love these cup holders and I use the clutter tray all the time.

Here is what my center console looked like when I got it:

See how the wood trim matches the car?  It is an EXACT match.

The first step was to get the driver’s seat:

To look just like the passenger seat:

This consisted of cutting off the extra part of frame that was welded on that makes a 40 seat a 60 seat, in a 60/40 arrangement.  By doing this, it essentially removes the part of the seat circled in yellow below.

Basically, without the extra piece of frame welded on, both seats are identical.  So, we cut off the extra piece, and my upholstery shop sewed up the seat so it looks identical to the passenger seat.

As this was my daily driver, I mounted the passenger seat in the driver’s location while the driver’s seat was being modified.  I also had the upholstery shop rebuild both seat’s bottom cushions and replace a couple of torn panels while they had the seats in their possession.

The next step was to pull out the seats and carpeting:

Now is a great time to clean the carpet!

And make brackets to mount the floor shifter and console.  Placement of the console has some flexibility.  It’s going to be centered by the seats, but you can choose the best location as far as forward or backward.

Also, you have some choices as far as height of the rear of the console.  I chose not to notch the rear of my console out, and rather to get a good fit between the console and floor by adding layers of fiberglass insulation.  I am tall, and I didn’t want to lower the console.  It was just right without modification.

The shifter holds down the front of the console, while the rear of the console has a couple of screws that hold it down.  They are accessed by removing the inner storage liner.

Once the brackets were made, I filled the gaps under the brackets with expanding foam, and cut fiberglass insulation to fit.  The expanding foam keeps everything solid and quiet.  The fiberglass adds thickness so there is no gap between the console and the carpet.

Now that we have the shifter mounted, we can hook up the cable and the electrical.  The cable exits the front of the shifter, and routes under the pedals.  It exits through the drivers footwell, and runs under the car and connects to the transmission.

This first pic shows the area marked that needs to be cut out for the shifter cable grommet.

The grommet installed in driver’s footwell, with cable exiting through the floor.  This grommet is built into the Bravada console.  Try to get the cable when you get your shifter.  If you can’t, GM still carries them.

Here is the grommet installed, and the cable exiting under the car and heading towards the transmission.

Here is the cable as it exits the shifter and routes under the pedals and towards the driver’s footwell.

Here you can see the cable attached to the shifter.  The cable routes forward and under the driver’s pedals.

There are two brackets needed to hook the cable to the transmission.  The first is the trans pan bracket that holds the cable to the pan.  This bracket and the cable are adjustable, allowing you to synchronize the B-Body shifter with the new cable operated floor shifter.

The second bracket is a modified bracket that is essentially a stock B-Body transmission shifter bracket with part of a Blazer/Bravada bracket welded to it so it accepts the cable:

Here is a better picture of the trans pan bracket & modified bracket:

The reason you need a modified bracket is because we want the stock B-Body shifter and shifter interlock to function with the Bravada shifter.  This allows the automatic door lock / unlock function to still work.  In addition, the gear indicator in the gauge cluster will still function.  Finally, the shift interlock will still work.

For this to work mechanically, you will need to remove the shifter handle on the column.  You can punch out the pin, take out the handle, and leave the knob.  Or, you can delete the handle, and make it look like there never was one.

The part of the column where the shifter handle was is still going to rotate with shifter.  You can leave the little knob there if you want to.

However, I wanted my column to look like it never had a column shifter.  So, I cut the knob off with a hack saw, and then filed the rest smooth.

I filled the hole with JB Weld and finished the job with Duplicolor Fabric & Vinyl Paint in Medium Gray once the surface was finished.

Now there is the electrical to hook up.

This schematic covers hooking up the shifter / shifter interlock, and the lamps / lighting.  Kevin did a great job on these instructions, so I’ll let them do the talking.

Electrical hookup information courtesy of Kevin Giltner.  Kevin also made the modified bracket and the wiring harness for me.

The B-Body still has it’s shift interlock, and the Bravada Shifter has one too.

The instructions above allow both interlocks to work together. Plus, it has instructions for hooking up the lighting for the shift indicator.

Now that we have the shifter mounts, console mounts, the shifter cable is hooked up, and the electrical is connected, we can install our carpet and our new console.

You will need to cut a slit in the carpet for the shifter.

Once you have the carpet and console / shifter in, you can reinstall your seats, or in my case, seat.  I drove around for many weeks with just one seat.  My upholstery shop is excellent and busy.  It was worth the wait, as both seats look identical.  The original owner had punctured one panel on each seat, so I had those panels replaced too.  And since it is really inexpensive to rebuild the seat cushions while the seats are already apart and in the shop, I had them do both.

Looks good, doesn’t it?   Looks stock!  The boot was made from surplus gray leather, as I was never able to get vinyl paint to properly adhere to the stock vinyl boots.  They always cracked.  The leather looks and feels way better anyway IMHO.

I had my upholstery shop make a custom leather boot for the shifter.  This was the first and last boot they’ll ever make.  Apparently, it was tough to get their machines to do all the detail work, so it was mostly done by hand.

I dyed the handle with Duplicolor Medium Gray Fabric & Vinyl Paint after using SEM products for the prep.

This is one of my all time favorite modifications.

It looks stock!  It functions like it is stock.  The gear indicator in the gauge cluster still functions.  The automatic door locks still work.  The gear indicator in the console is illuminated, and it matches the lighting of the RM.

I am very happy with the outcome of this modification.  The floor shifter helps carry out the Gran Sport Theme very well.

Combine the Center Console/Floor Shifter with the Triple Gauge Pod, Custom 200 MPH Speedometer/White Face Gauge Cluster, and GS Headrest Logos, and the Gran Sport Theme gets even better.

When people see the car, they know one thing is certain…

…this isn’t their Grandpa’s Buick!