Stick Shift Full Size Van

[jseabolt]

About 20 years ago I worked for this office furniture place. One of our vans was a 1984 Chevy full size van. 6 cylinder but had a three speed floor shifter. At first it was awkward to drive because the gear shifter was next to the seat but eventually I found it a quite fun vehicle.

 

It's my understanding that the three speeds were acutally column shifters and from the looks of the floor shifter, appeared to be aftermarket. Someone had taken pink nail polish and wrote HURST down the side of it.

 

So far this is the only van I have ever seen with a manual transmission so it has to be a rare beast.

 

I'd like a find me an old van with no side windows or interior I could haul stuff in and leave parked outside.

 

I'm a Ford man by nature but think it would be much easier to convert an automatic over to a stick shift in a GMC or Chevy. Simply because Ford is bad about swapping parts from one year to another and allot of parts not being interchangable.

 

I'm thinking of a Chevy van built from the mid 80s to mid 90s.

 

I'm just curious is all the parts needed to do the conversion could be sources from a truck of the same era? Such as the clutch pedal?

 

My stepson told me the transmissions used in 6 cylinders and V8s (maybe not big blocks) were interchangable. So in other words if I found a four speed from a Chevy truck, it would bolt up to a 6 cylinder?