Transmission Time!

There was much head scratching and figuring between the last post and this one.  I have a big block Ford engine and heavy duty non-overdrive C6 automatic transmission in a truck that was never designed for that kind of displacement.  Its a good thing that I have an aftermarket square tubing chassis to simplify everything.  Ha!  Thats a good one...

OK, so here is a list of my problems right now:

1. There is an ~850 pound power train in my 3,500 pound vehicle.  Slightly excessive.
2. The engine is so big that routing the exhaust pipes on the driver's side in the conventional manner is not possible due to the largest steering gearbox ever made* being only a few inches away.
3. The super awesome chassis features a beefy cross bracing arrangement near the engine-to-transmission interface, steering gearbox-to-linkage interface, and exhaust header collector interface, which complicates the situation.  All of that stuff is literally within six inches of each other.  If my truck had an area called Downtown, that would be it.  

A lesser man would do something cheap and awkward like installing some new exhaust headers on the old engine upside down so they would point up toward the hood.  From there, you can route the pipes a few different ways to get them back under the truck body where they should be.  See example of some other guy's truck from the internet:

I, of course, have chosen the path of most resistance and decided to sell the existing power train and purchase a more suitable Ford 302 small block engine with a five speed manual transmission.  The total weight reduction on this swap will be approximately 300 pounds.  The 302 is more practical in the engine compartment, has lots of cheap and readily available aftermarket parts, and will get the job done in the horsepower department just fine.  The transmission swap to the manual shift five speed has the two main benefits of robbing less power from the engine than the automatic and having an Overdrive gear for better highway driving.  Plus, future me will eventually get to pick out a cool knob to put on the shifter! 

I went shopping today on Craigslist and found a great deal on a ford M5OD transmission that was taken out of a late 80's model F150.  It cost $100 and I got the luxury of removing the factory clutch and brake pedal assembly from under the dash while I was there.  The wasp was bad, the varmint excrement on the floorboard of the cab was a little worse, but the afternoon sun took the prize.  Yes, I timed my visit just right so that while laying on my back near a wasp nest in varmint excrement, the sun was directly in my line of sight for 45 minutes while looking up under the dash.  Good times.

So, all in all, it was a pretty good day.  The next step is to finish removing the old automatic transmission from the truck and open up the new one to see how it looks and start replacing the old seals, etc.  After that, there will be more head scratching time spent on getting the new clutch assembly figured out and finding all the missing parts needed for that adventure.


*Claim is the author's opinion only and shall not be considered the opinion of this station or its network affiliates.