Just curious, has anyone measured how much the transmission tunnel is offset to the passengers side of the vehicle?

My '73 is in the center , no off set . What are you driving ? :paranoid:

Just measured my 73 and didn't see any off set....

No off set

The center of the tunnel isn't offset, but the sides of the tunnel are assymetrical. 73 240z. The transmission tunnel side on the passenger side of the car comes out at a slant closer to the outside of the car and the drivers side is more vertical. Its not really noticeable unless you are installing the floorpans.

And no, its not b/c something shifted when I cut out the original ones. This was measured before and after, both times it was off....

You can probably find the measurements you are looking for in the Sevice Manual if they exist. The tunnel is constructed the way it is - as well as the shifter cutout location - because the car is bias to right-hand drive.

It's not really offset in the way we might think. There are subtle differences between the left and right side of the tunnel. Some are due to the location of the hand brake and the shape of the transmission. It IS, however, bias to the right side and as much as I hate the arguement, I'm convinced it is because the car was designed RHD.

For fitting new floors, I did my rough cuts first, holding the new floor in place and scribing the metal to fit. I bolted the transmission mount in place to keep the tunnel dimension stable and measured to the mounting points for alignment.

Chris - the weld-grinder

  Corganx33 said:

The center of the tunnel isn't offset, but the sides of the tunnel are assymetrical. 73 240z. The transmission tunnel side on the passenger side of the car comes out at a slant closer to the outside of the car and the drivers side is more vertical. Its not really noticeable unless you are installing the floorpans.

I don't think it has anything to do with RHD, but it just has to be that way for fit. If you have a transmission out of the car and look at it, you'll see that the bellhousing is flared out on the right side for the starter. The tunnel is flared on that side to match.

Thats what I wanted to confirm. Thanks Arne. The amount of "massaging" for the passenger floorpan vs. the driver floorpan was significant, so I wanted to verify that nothing was wrong.

  26th-Z said:

.....The tunnel is constructed the way it is - as well as the shifter cutout location - because the car is bias to right-hand drive.......

It's not really offset in the way we might think. There are subtle differences between the left and right side of the tunnel. Some are due to the location of the hand brake and the shape of the transmission. It IS, however, bias to the right side and as much as I hate the arguement, I'm convinced it is because the car was designed RHD.

Amen to that, but I don't know why you would "hate the argument"?

  Arne said:

I don't think it has anything to do with RHD, but it just has to be that way for fit. If you have a transmission out of the car and look at it, you'll see that the bellhousing is flared out on the right side for the starter. The tunnel is flared on that side to match.

On the contrary - it has everything to do with RHD. What you are seeing is a direct consequence of the fact that the main componentry of the car was biased towards an RHD configuration - descended from Nissan's Austin links.

Nissan made a fine job of building-in LHD configuration compatability when they productionised the S30-series Z, but the fact that the basic design is arranged around an RHD configuration seems to pass over the heads of many.

Even the hole for the gear shift lever is not 'central' in the trans tunnel........