Roadster pickup gets gearshift

I installed the Lokar shifter today in my roadster pickup. I don't know how long it takes the pro builders to install one of these things, but it took me 6 1/2 hours start to finish. Thats with the body already installed on the chassis, whole car up on blocks, me sweating and cursing from underneath on a creeper. Other than the obvious piggishness of working from underneath on a creeper, it went well. Lokar makes an extremely well thought out package, with good adjustability front to rear, and the shifter can be rotated from side to side to give a bit more "knee room" to the driver (albeit at the expense of the passenger). The shifter comes with all the neccessary fasteners, and reasonably good instructions. (in the included assembly drawing, the rear mounting bracket is shown bass ackwards to what it actually should be). Fortunately they have good pictures on their website, which helped me sort out that glitch. Why such a big hole in the floor?--well, I started out with the rotary air grinder and cut a neat hole to what I calculated to be the corrrect size. Then,after a trial fit I fired up the torch to give a bit more clearance on the right side. Then, after another trial fit I fired up the torch for just a bit more clearance on the left side----- I don't feel to bad about this of course. That floor pan is 3/16" steel plate. If the boot doesn't cover the hole, I will peice it back in with some small peices of plate and the trusty mig. Before I actually positioned the shifter and cut the floor, I sat in the bucket seat with the shifter in my hand in an "easy to reach position" and marked the position of the shifter on the floor. I then drilled a hole through the floor with a 1/4" drill bit, so that when I was underneath on the creeper I could see approximately where the shifter base should be installed. This worked out excellent, because once the installation was done, I sat in the car (see the dirty bucket seats) and I can reach the shifter when it is in park without having to "lurch foreward" to grab the shifter knob. When it is in drive, the knob is about 3" ahead of the front of the bucket seat. the lever is a 16" long unit. All in all I feel very good about the way things went. Anybody who has a few "bolt together" skills should be able to install one of these units with no problems.