I am starting this out with a simple listing of the major concerns that must be dealt with when installing a t-5 behind a slant.

1. Space under the tranny tunnel, and restriction of upper cross member.

2. Bolt pattern of the trans not matching the Mopar bell housing pattern.

3. Pilot bearing supporting the input shaft.

4. Speedometer cable.

5. Clutch pressure plate and flywheel matchup.

6. Angle of front and rear universals matching.

7. Tranny support Crossmember.

8. U joints and drive shaft mixing.

9. Clutch linkage and throwout bearing.

10. Fear of making this all work. Emotional challenge of where and how to start, etc.

This is all that comes to mind right now. If I think of more, I will add it. I invite anyone with experience or knowledge to address as many of these issues as they wish. In time I will add my approach to all of these. There will be differences of opinion for sure. That is fine. Healthy disagreement will yield useful information and show the pluses and minuses of each approach. It might help organization to address each of these in order, but that might restrict the flow of information too much. In any event, I th ink it would be a good idea to have each post address only one of the issues at a time. Eventually maybe some one will organize the info into a sticky, or article or what have you. For now.......Chime in.

Sam

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All these issues can be dealt with in a straight forward, and actually rather simple fashion. I did not say easy. But I did say simple. Each section of the above list, except maybe the fear part, is not that hard by itself. I think it is the combination of the above that perhaps can seem overwhelming. I will start filling in my approach to each of the above sections over the next week or so. Those who wish to comment feel free to do so. I am not the authority. Just one guy, with one way of approaching the problem.

Sam

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1. Space under the tranny tunnel, and restriction of upper cross member.


The T5 interferes with the tranny tunnel and upper crossmenber. One solution is to use a trans that does not interfere in these areas. The Tremec RAP I used does not.

THe factory 4 speed "hump" can ease tunnel interference. I used a 3 speed tunnel.

2. Bolt pattern of the trans not matching the Mopar bell housing pattern.

I merely drilled the bell to the trans pattern. This mimicked the way the trans was bolted to the Mustang bell. The bolts were through bolts that threaded into the trans. This means you cannot remove the trans without removing the attached bell. Note blue bolts in picture. This is a stock aluminum 3 spd bell.

Add to this the input bearing retainer does not register with the bellhousing.
click to view full-version

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

2a The input bearing retainer does not register with the bellhousing.


click to view full-version

I machined the input Bearing retainer down till it was the same size as the stock throwout bearing. You can see how much was removed.
At the same time the OD of the bearing retainer was reduced as much as possible to come closer to the size of the hole in the bell. We were limited by the retainers mounting bolts ........so I used hand files to machine the bell to fit the retainer. I used felt pen as machinist dye and took my time to get a tight fit. You can budget a 6 pack or 3 hours for this.
Cost of machining the bearing retainer was 45 mins @ shop rate.

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

3. Pilot bearing supporting the input shaft and input shaft too short.

click to view full-version

I added a piece to the trans input shaft. You can see it in the picture. The additional piece was round stock machined to the Mopar pilot bushing size....with a hole machined to fit over the trans input shaft. This made the input shaft as long as the stock 3 spd shaft ....and the same diameter where it entered the bushing. I just sat the Mustang trans beside the stock trans and measured it up. We made the hole in the extender an interference fit with the Mustang input shaft . To install it I heated up the extender ....dumped in some Loctite and gave it a judicious whack.

This extender cost 20 mins of machine time @ shop rate and a couple of bucks for the round stock.

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

4: speedo cable

I found one in the local yard. It was the right length and both ends fit. I have no idea what it was from. I do know it took minutes to find one that worked.

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

5. Clutch pressure plate and flywheel matchup.


I used the stock flywheel , pressure plate and throwout bearing. I initially used the clutch disc I got with the Mustang trans (9.25") and later went for a McLeod ceramic disc for a Taurus SHO($125)

I also used the stock clutch linkage and pilot bushing. No modifications were necessary for any of this beyond what has been covered.

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

7. Tranny support Crossmember.

click to view full-version

I used the stock crossmember . It was modified by grinder till it cleared the trans. If you compare this to a stock mount you will realize a lot of material was removed. I added a rubber cushion mount for the trans to sit on.

In the picture you can see how I used a mount that bolts to the bottom of the Mustang trans. Ford used this to mount the exhaust.....

One of the holes in the crossmenber lined up with the rubber bushed hole in the trans mount.....the other one was fabbed by welding a bolt to the crossmember. The trans mounts via bolts going through the two large holes in the mount and threading into the trans.

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

8. U joints and drive shaft mixing.


I used the stock driveshaft with a conversion U joint to mount the Mustang trans yoke. Coincidentally I used the same conversion joint on the other end of the shaft to bolt to my Ford 8.8 rear diff.

The driveshaft is stock length.

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

Great response Sandy. Thank you. Would you like to elaborate on what the RAP trans is, and what vehicles it was found in please.

Others? I will throw in my approach here later.

Sam

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Tremec RAP 5 speed Mustang 2.3L 4 Cylinder 1980-83
Ranger 2.3L 4 Cylinder 1985-? Canadian

Aluminum, top loaded case with a tin rectangular 10-bolt cover. All main bearings are tapered and the 5th gear synchro assembly is on the Main shaft All five synchro rings are the same. Casting number 260XXXX. or RF

click to view full-version

This trans weighs a little less than a stock 3 speed .

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

Lol @ picture hosting site. Clickers beware.

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<img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/2992308402_5481afb26e_t.jpg">

I want to thank Sandy for his contribution so far. I will add a few bits from my perspective at this point. More will follow.

My approach was to take the most common 5 speed out there, the T-5 in the Mustang through the 90's and and make the modifications needed to the A body to make it fit. The concerns are listed above.

General Approach.
Make the trans adapt to the slant complete with clutch and flywheel. Then
make this combination fit the car. I just assumed I would do whatever modifications were needed to make it fit the car, and did not worry about this until I got to that bridge. So, I first built the engine and trans on a dollie while I proceeded to drive the car with the old engine and OD 833.

Choosing a tranny

First challenge is picking a trans that can be made to fit the slant.

. First, I took carefull measurement of the input shaft of the A833 and went looking for a version of the T-5 whose input shaft would reach the pilot bearing on the slant. At that time, little was on the internet compared to today, so I spent a fair amount of time with a ruler in junk yards that pull and stock their parts. I think it took months to gather the information I needed. The tranny that emerged in the sights of my hunt was the T-5 that came in the six and four cylinder Mustangs. When I finally found what I wanted, I found it for $200 in a local lower tier yard. They didn't know what they had. But I did.

When a conversion plate is added between the trans and bellhousing, none were long enough to reach the old, stock Mopar pilot bearing. If I had bolted the trans to the bellhousing from the inside as Sandy did, then the T-5 I selected would have just reached. But, I wasn't thinking along those lines, so with the .75" plate moving the trans out further from the crank nose, the input shaft reached just inside the automatic torque converter snout recess. Which, as it turns out, is where the pilot bearing is installed on some later models of Mopar trucks. Great news.

Making a plastic pattern for the adapter.

If you bought the group buy bell housing, you are home free here. Good for you.

The most important consideration of this entire project was to make sure the crank, input shaft, main shaft, and drive shaft were all lined up correctly to minimize the possibility of vibration. All decisions from this point on made this the highest priority. I did not want a car that had an annoying and destructive vibration in it.

The bell housing I used was the common /6 aluminum housing for the OD 833 which has a larger input shaft bearing retainer than the older standard 4 spd 833. The bearing retainer on the t-5 is smaller than the OD opening. So, I decided to have the adapter plate also register and center the input bearing as well as space the trans.



I used .030 styrene sheet to fabricate a pattern for the adapter plate. I started out by cutting a sheet of this to a shape that would more than cover the trans face of the bell housing and carefully cutting a hole in it the size of the bearing retainer hole in the bell housing. I then cut strips of the same material that were 1/2" wide and glued these around the inside of the hole in the styrene base such that the strips extended down into the bellhousing retainer hole, thus forming a flange that extended down into the retainer hole of the bell to keep it centered. I continued to add more layers to the inside of this flange until the hole was just large enough for the tranny bearing retainer to slip into it. I think my last layer was less than .030 thick. This plastic sheet is available from hobby suppliers, or local suppliers of commercial plastic. Hobby shops sell it in small amounts, which is more expensive per unit, but cheaper if you don't have a need for a lot of this stuff. Now I had a plastic sheet with an adapter ring to hold the bearing retainer centered.

Marking the pattern for mounting holes.
I marked this plastic pattern from inside the bellhousing for the holes that would bolt the finished plate to the bellhousing. I drilled these smaller then needed, and cleaned them out to the correct final size with an exacto knife while the plate was in place on the bellhousing. Then I placed the trans in place on the pattern, still in place on the bell housing, and marked through the trans mount holes on the plastic. As it turns out, the plate to bell mounting holes are in a different location from the trans mounting holes, so there was no conflict there. It should be noted that the t-5 is designed to tilt 15 degrees off level, so this must be calculated into positioning the trans when making the marks. I no longer remember which way it sits, but hopefully someone else will have this info.

Making the real adapter.
I sent this plastic pattern off to Andy F, and he machined an aluminum plate to the size of the pattern, with the hole and raised flange machined into the surface. I was unsure of total thickness needed, so I had him make it 1" thick. Then, when I got things together here, and could see for myself how far the input shaft extended into the pilot bearing, it became clear to me the entire plate had to be machined down to .75". The same guy who mills a cylinder head can do this, and my local auto machine shop was happy to do the job.

AFter the final thickness was achieved, I counter bored the bell housing mounting holes on the plate so the bolt heads would be recessed under the tranny mount surface.

Next installment will be clutch.

Sam

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Official Cookie and Mater Tormentor.

Best. Thread. Ever.

Thanks, guys!

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vm