So, I was curious if anyone had an idea on the relative difficulty of giving my autotragic, err, automatic, the boot, and swapping in a standard into a 74 Z/28.
Side note - the interior is being completely removed to tackle another issue.
I figured while my interior's taken apart, and she's on downtime,now would be as good a time as any.

 

How tuff the job is depends on you and what you want. You want a car that even a car guy can not tell it was converted? Or you just want it functional? How much will you be doing?
Functional: Mechanical Clutch: The easiest way to go about this is to get a donor car. You will need to replace a section of the floor. You will have to pull the engine. The pivot shaft runs between the engine the sub frame you might have to weld in the bracket. I pretty sure the engine would be drilled and tapped (if it’s a Camaro engine) for it but I am not sure. Of course you need to change out the pedal set. Add a hole to the fire wall connect the petal to the cross shaft, connect the cross shaft to the clutch fork. Side note some header to interfere with the cluck linkage. You may need to modify or replace headers.

Hydraulic Clutch: This is the easiest way to convert tho you will have to make your connection between petal and the master cylinder. You may have to do some fab work for the slave to clutch (if you’re trans in not an original hydraulic clutch). There could be kits available. If there are it would be the easiest way to go.

Comedic/Details: Your console and steering column will need replaced if you want the car to pass a quick check for originality. You would also need to hook up a clutch safety switch so you can not crank the car without the clutch pushed. Revs lights connector will also need fab’ed.

I always tell people; unless you’re building a race car/hotrod you are better off finding a standard version and trading or sell yours and buy the stick. Normally the differents between a stick and automatic is only a few hundred dollars. You can not do a decent conversion for that. Even with a complete donor car it is a lot of work to do right. And it will devalue the car if some can figure it out or you are truthful when you sell it.

After saying that the 74 stick is not common but I think you can find 75-77’s with sticks. Here in PA they show up every now and then and they do not bring much money unless they are mint.

No mater what you do you will need a detailed plan before you start.

 

Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely keep that in mind.
Getting rid of my Camaro is out of the question though, I'm a little too attached to the car.
It was my dad's and I grew up around the car, so I'm gonna hang on to it.
I'm trying to do as much as I can myself. Budget and time aren't really an issue (for the most part) especially with this car. It's got the ability to have as much downtime as it needs, seeing as it's been in storage since '95 and is being completely overhauled.
I figured since the floorpan's shot and being entirely replaced, and the interior will be out of the car, it seemed like the easiest time to approach the issue.
Also, how does the steering column differ on the standard? I was looking at photos of the standard interior and it didn't appear any different than the one currently in the car.

 

I used to own a 72 and a 74. The 74 was a standard the 72 an automatic. The automatic was a floor shift with a indicator on the column. The base of the column were different because the standard had none of that linkage for the indicator.Seeing that linkage with nothing connected to it is a dead giveaway to a convertion.

 

Mine already had its interior replaced once. The parts were sourced from an '80 z/28. My dad said he liked the look better.
It has the gear indicator next to the shifter, which may explain why I didn't see the column thing.
The column currently in it doesn't look any different from a standard's column. If I weren't 1800 miles from my car, I'd photograph it to show you.

 

The only thing about the column that I know that's different from the standard to the manual for the 74 is that the shift indicator on the auto is between the tach and speedo and not on the column. On the center console for the shifter the hole is a bit different from the boot of an auto to the well of a manual from what I've seen.