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As of 09 May 2004.....

Got the transmission crossmember all back in place. Used a weld-plate setup where plates are welded onto the open ends of the crossmember and they're then bolted together once the crossmember is back in place. I think the welds turned out pretty good for someone that never welded a thing before Friday afternoon :thumbs: Someone else may have done better, or perhaps worse, but I know what went into them and I'm pretty happy. Need to do a little grinding, but it's looking pretty good.

Tomorrow I hope to get the adapter plate set for runout, and then I can put that transmission up where it's supposed to go. Need to enlarge the opening for the shifter before I do that though.

Anyhow, I updated my webpage, so have a look-see. :thumbs:

 

Sounding good! Could you take some pics of the dial indicator and how you set it up to check for runout?


[Modified by lostpatrolman, 11:56 PM 5/9/2004]

 

There should be a pics of it on the page.
Keeping things simple, the dial indicator is mounted to a section of 1/2" PVC. One end of the pvc has a little tape on it to make it a snug fit into the clutch disc. The other end is cut away and has a hole drilled to allow the mounting stud thing on the dial indicator to slide in snugly.

 

Answering a question on the adapter plate and alignment....

The bellhousing is mounted to the engine. I really don't care about its alignment, it just needs to hold the adapter. So I've decided to not worry about messing with offset pins & stuff going into the engine.

The adapter plate as shown in my pics has 6 holes right now. 4 for the T5 and the 2 bottom Muncie holes. Those muncie holes (where the bolts are ) are oversized to allow the adapter to move around.

The runout gage will give me high and low spots, telling me how far from being perfectly concentric the hole in the adapter plate is with the driveshaft. Rotate the engine, tap the adapter up/down/sideways until the runout is eliminated.

Then, the adapter is where it needs to be relative to the bellhousing and the engine. So I'll drill 2 holes in the adapter, into the bellhousing and insert a couple of pins to hold that exact orientation between the adapter and the bellhousing.

Then the Bellhousing needs to be removed. The upper holes between the Muncie pattern and the T5 pattern are REALLY close. So close, I couldn't even countersink both bolt heads. The bolts heads would cover the holes needed for the T5. So after much thought and brainstroming, I've decided to mount the upper bolts from INSIDE the bellhousing. So once I have the adapter aligned, I have to drill & tap the upper holes, using the threaded bosses in the Muncie bellhousing as guides. Should work like a charm.

Then, the adapter will be attached to the bellhousing in the proper location, bolted and pinned in place. The hole for the bearing rtetainer will be right where it needs to be relative to the engine, and it should be all set.

 

Looking good Dave, keep at it. :thumbs:

Wasn't able to to make it up to see you this weekend but hopefully we can hook up in the near future.

 

No problem Chris. We'll catch up one of these days.

 

Got the runout set on the adapter plate. Got it set to about 0.003 :thumbs:

Now to drill & pin it and tap & drill from the inside of the bellhousing.

 

First for today's helpful garage tidbit:

Before you drop a T5 transmission on your head, remember that it does weigh about 80lb or so. And it's made out of metal and not something more cushy like feathers, for example. So if you do decide to drop it on your head, expect 2 things:
1) It will hurt
2) It will leave marks

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread update.....

 

you forgot that lots of funny sounding words will follow...

 

It's in, it's out, it's in, it's out....

Well, thr frustrations are mounting and the clock to get ready for the Cruise In is ticking.

Thought I had it in, but it wouldn't mount to the bellhousing all the way. Odd since it did just fine on the garage floor.

Turns out that the sleeve on the bearing etainer is about 1/4" too long and it was grounding out on the clutch disc. :cuss:

It was during this exercise that I decided it would be a good idea to lose my grip on the trans, letting it bounce off my chest and roll onto the ground via my head. To put the trans in, I was just laying under the car and bench-pressing it up into place. Tried a jack, but that got silly. besides, the trans isn't THAT heavy....until you drop it on your head.

Run to Home Depot for a pipe cutter, lop off about 3/8" or so of the outer sleeve and I'm ready to get that thing in there.

Get it back in after several tries of aligning the clutch disc and bearing. even using that alignment tool isn't anywhere near perfect.

Woohoo! The trans is in my car, looking good, put the crossmember in place and get it into about the proper position. :thumbs:

Go inside to check out the shifter situation. Not too bad. My preliminary hole needs some trimming, but that's ok.

Hook the shifter up to get the feel.....hmmm....it won't go into gear. Strange. Try turning the rear yoke and it WON'T TURN! The trans is in Neutral!!!! :confused: Try turning over the engine with a wrench on the crank bolt. No go. Something is grounded out! :cuss:

Out comes the trans and the re-measuring starts. I know I have clearance to the disc from the bearing retainer sleeve.

Turns out that the pilot bearing it the culprit. THis bearing is kinda goofy.
Instead of sitting down in the middle of the crankshaft, in that small hole, it sits out more in a bigger diameter cutout. Showing here....



Now the pilot part of the Ford trans is going into that bearing ALL THE WAY to the point where it's compressing the input shaft back into the trans, grounding out who knows what. UGH! :cuss: Now I need to either:
a) Find a different bearing that goes into the center hole
b) Grind down the end of the T5 input shaft to allow deeper insertion into the pilot bearing that I have.

either way.... :cuss: about sums up tonight's excitement.

 

For some strange reason, I don't actually cuss when I do stuff like that. Tried to cut my finger off with a biscuit jointer a few years back (now you want to talk about pain!! :eek: ) didn't cuss a bit. Go figure.

Now when I walked into an upper cabinet door tonight that buried itself into my head momentarily, I did go "Oh s***!!"

 

Well....looks like I'm grinding on the input shaft. Just checked the other source I found for the bearing adapter and after close inspection, it's actually the same one that I have in the car now.

 

Now, don't let these follies dissuade you from tackling this project. Both of these interferences could have been taken care of simply by using a 3/4" adapter instead of a 1/2" one. Everything looked to have been fine with the 1/2. I'm ondering if there are a couple different designs for the input shaft & bearing retainer, and that this may be peculiar to the setup I have.

 

When choosing an adaptor plate thickness I first took a mustang T5 and the chevy T5, had them both on the bench and after carefull measuring I found the difference to be exactly 1/2 inch, exactly so the logical choice to adaptor plate would be 1/2 inch not 3/4 inch and have the transmission back the extra 1/4 inch.
For the crank pilot I just bought the ford pilot which had the proper ID and turned the OD of the ford pilot to the same as the chevy one. I slid mine right into the crank to match the chevy pilot bearing. Mine never caused a problem.
For the front hub on the transmission I turned mine down, sleeved it with steel for a better sliding surface for the release bearing, stock is aluminum but steel sleeving is better and shortened it at the same time.
When doing a swap like this it is better to start with one thing at a time, in this case NO clutch/pressure plate installed, just work on runout of the adaptor plate first with a magnetic dial indicator right off the flywheel.
After the adaptor plate is trued and fastened, be sure to use studs in the adaptor plate, it aligns the transmission when you bench press it into place and check that it seats all the way into the crank without dealing with the clutch. It should slide all the way in.
The clutch is the last thing that should be installed and check for clearance.
Anyway you are comming right along and most of the problems are overcome.
You will love that transmission and it is all worth the effort.
I will check out your web site :thumbs: :thumbs:

 

Thanks,
You've convinced me to call Lakewood and order a C3 bell housing. I'll see if they'll drill it for a canted Camaro/Firebird 5 speed. If they wont, I will.
Buy a WC T5, use the original Z bar, keep the original shifter position, and not drop anything on my head!
Gary

 

Lakewood offers the F body bellhousing with the slave cyl bracket, are you going to mount the trans straight up or at the tilt? You do not have to drill anything if you mount it straight up and use a C3 bellhousing, you just need to attach the trans mount bracket to the crossmember at the 15* tilt and cut the trans tunnel.





[Modified by Fevre, 10:21 AM 5/13/2004]

 

Fevre,
I want to use the original shifter location and console plate. I checked the Original C3 bell housing and it didn't look like it could be redrilled for the canted T5. So I'll check with Lakewood about their C3 housing (to use the original Z bar linkage). If it's too pricey to have them drill it for a canted T5, I'm sure I could.
Gary

 

The T5's designed for the SIX cylinder have longer input shafts the the V8 T5. At the same time the first gear in the 6 is alot lower and the overdrive is closer to .8. Also the SIX cylinder T5 has a slightly smaller input saft diameter where it slides into the crank making for a loose fit.

 

I'll have to disagree on that one Norval. I ran a T-5 out of a camaro V-6 1985 (if I remember correctly) and it was a direct replacement of a V-8 T-5. The first gear ratio was 3.5 to 1 and the overdrive was 0.80 to 1. The difference was the width of the internal gear, much smaller on the V-6 unit.

Maybe there were different design through the years.

Stephan

 

I tried to give an update last night, but either my computer or the forum was acting up and my post didn't take.

Well, the transmission is in and problem-free (thus far). Hopefully it's in for good this time. Trimmed about 1/8" or less of material from the input shaft to make the pilot portion of it slightly longer (undersized it so there are no out of round issues).

Next steps:
Order the driveshaft (measured for it last night)
Fabricate a transmission mount bracket
Paint & Install the crossmember
Install the speedometer cable (Ordered a speedo adapter from Fortes) http://www.fortesparts.com/speedo.cfm
Figure out what I need for a shifter adapter to move it to the proper location.
Fab a sheet of aluminum to close out the old shifter hole
Re-shape the base for the lower shift boot to fit the new opening.
etc...

Lots of small stuff to do once I get the driveshaft in.

Oh yeah. I need to put some transmission fluid in the thing!!!