Sam any chance that you know what vehicle that part number is for? Or is it one of their own parts? Just in case they do away with it we would know what it is from. They have already discontinued the clutch disc we used in Ryan's Dart 5 years ago.

Rick

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

I just searched for 16061-M on
McLeod's new site


No results


However I did find a listing for 16061 with out the -M

Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

As it turns out, the M in the designation is hand written in magic marker. So maybe the M doesn't belong there. I do not know the application of this part number. But, it would be worth checking on the 16061 to see what it is for. Greg, did you see an application for that number?

Sam

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Part # brings up this

16061 CHRYSLER 1955-2010 ; USE WITH ALL 1-3/16X18 SPLINE TRANS. 426" & 440" ENGINES $100.00


Apparently the hemi 4-speed retainer diameter is a bit larger? Would that be correct?

Rick

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

It's possible but I haven't dealt with any Hemi Trannys - I do know they have an 18 spline input shaft rather than the 1x23 that we're used to.


Maybe Romeo Furio Would know? I am sure there are a few others that have dealt with 'em.

Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

I just noticed that part number is a palindrome.

Your guess sounds right. If it lists only the 440 and 426 there must be a difference. My memory is that this part just fits right on the carrier. I do not remember doing anything special to make it work. I suppose there is an outside chance I had to machine something. But I am certain I did not take the front bearing retainer off the T-5.

I say this because the front bearing seal leaked, and ruined the first clutch disk. I then had to pull things and replace the seal, and this was the first time I had it off the trans. If you are buying a junk yard tranny, it might be a good idea to go ahead and replace the front and rear seals on it. I did replace the rear seal before the install, as this is a common leak I wanted to avoid. As for the front seal...Shoulda..coulda..woulda.

Sam

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I'm a country boy, and had no idea what that was!

It means the part number is the same read left to right or right to left. Thanks Wikipedia!

Rick

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

The next discussion gets into whether or not to cut the floor up to make this work. If your car came with a 4 speed, the hump will allow a compromised placement of the t-5 that will work with some shimming of the rear to match the pinion angle. But if you wish to put the T-5 in level, as designed, the upper cross member and sheet metal will need to be cut out, and re-fabricated.

That is what I did. Again, I was concerned about drive line vibration, and I decided that I was going to take every step to make this set up work like a factory setup anywhere possible.

I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to some aspects of the car hobby, particularly electronics, but I feel my strongest talent lies in fabrication, so this was not a stretch for me. I can make pretty much anything that does not require compound curves from things purchased at Home Depot, and pop rivets.

Fabrication. I actually prefer pop rivets to welding in most applications because heat can distort sheet metal, and the flux from welding will start the corrosion process that eventually becomes rust. If you weld, and are good at it, fine, this is not an attack on that. And there are certain places where welding is the best, and maybe only way to go. I have just had excellent results with pop rivets over the years, and the one car that I welded everything on, rusted sooner than this one, which is mostly pop riveted together.

With pop rivets however, you should seal them up with something to keep moisture from penetrating them. I use fiber glass based Bondo as because it water proof, or seam sealer caulk.

AT this point, it was time to take the car off the road, so the decision was made to put the car on jack stands, and record the locations of everything on the floor. The floor and these measurements became the reference for all subsequent re-assembly. I used a plumb bob, and marked on the floor with a Sharpie. I also recorded measurements in a notebook. The car was not moved again until the project was complete, and the car was ready to start and drive. I am pretty paranoid when it comes to safety when working around cars, so I left the wheels on the entire time. This meant that if the car fell while I was under it, the wheels were there to limit the distance it could fall, and maybe provide me a bit of space to breath and wiggle out.

Beginning the tear down.So, after putting the car up on jack stands, and taking careful measurements of where everything was in relation to the floor, I pulled the engine and trans, and proceeded to calculate how much of the floor needed to be cut out. I decided to remove the floor further back than the trans sits in its installed position since pulling the trans back to remove it required the space to do this. The T-5 has a gear shift box and rod tube body that sits up higher than the tail shaft of the trans. This is what required the extra room. As it turned out, I was glad I did this as I had to pull the trans in fairly short order to replace a leaking front seal.

Perhaps the toughest decision, and the one requiring the most bravery was cutting the upper cross member out. This is also the torsion bar support, so the replacement has to be very strong. I eventually bit the bullet, and cut it out with a hack saw. I left some of the original cross member in place at the ends to fasten the new cross member to.

Cutting the Metal.Most folks own a hand held jig saw that will take metal cutting hack saw blades. These are very, very useful for cutting out sheet metal when making body repairs or modifications. They make short work of most sheet metal. For some reason, most guys will pull out a grinding wheel, and make all kinds of sparks and noise, and a real mess instead of grabbing their hand held jig saw.

Installing the engine and trans. After I had the floor cut away adequately, I lowered the trans and engine in place with the hoist. Fortunately I have a 9 foot ceiling in the garage. I proceeded to install all mechanicals and get things working before building the new cross member and hump in place around the trans. I proceded with all reassembly with full confidence that I would be able to solve any and all challenges that the floor fabrication threw my way.

Tomorrow I will discuss the cross member and hump fabrication even though that was the last thing I did.

Sam

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This install is for the upper cross member and tunnel fabrication.

The strategy was to frame it out with angle iron and then cover it with sheet metal. All the seams were sealed with seam sealer to keep out fumes and water. The top is removable for servicing the shifter, and for filling the trans with oil, which is done with a long funnel.

The major challenge on the project is building the upper cross member that also allows for the speedo cable access, as the cable exits the T-5 almost directly behind the cross member. For this reason I had to cut away most of the factory cross member on the driver's side. I needed to leave something there to fasten the new cross member to, and wanted to keep as much of the factory cross member as possible. In the end I cut it almost all away, and started the new vertical part of the cross member on the driver's side a little further to the left than the stock one was. This meant removing a little more floor, but I was into it by then, and that did not bother me.

Later in the car's evolution I installed an electric speedo, and all this concern about the cable went away. So, if you are planning a dash re-design you could go that route.

I should also say to start that I made no attempt to duplicate the curves of the original hump. Almost all consoles are square in profile, and so I made the hump mostly square, with the sides leaning in slightly towards the top, which is flat. The hump sticks up above the original floor considerably, and this means there is a rear vertical face as well. I will take a picture later and post it.

Also, I treated this project like framing up a house by building the cross member at the rear of the console and then adding the upper corner framing forward from there connecting to the forward floor pan under the dash. This framing was not a big job, and took maybe 2 or three evenings of part time work. All the materials came from home depot, and was all steel.

The material I used for the cross member was angle iron and strap metal. The original cross member was U shaped in cross section, and I duplicated this by combining two angles capped with strap steel. I duplicated the dimensions of the stock cross member except that I used 1/8" steel instead of the sheet metal they used. Since the top is capped with 1/8" strap the outside thickness of the cross member ended up being 1/4" thick. It is very strong. I think the angle iron was roughly 2"x2" and the cap joining them is about 4" making the finished U 2"x4".

I used pop rivets to hold these together in the U shape, and then made corner gussets to join the vertical and horizontal sections of the framing.

I need to get to work now. I will write more later.

Sam

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Sam are you saying that you only used pop rivets on the new upper cross member pieces? They were not welded a all?


Rick

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

They are not welded at all. There are a bunch of pop rivets though. If you look at bridges from the early part of the 20th century you will see that they are built from structural pieces that are all riveted together. These bridges were made of spindly looking strips of metal that formed a truss, all riveted. This was done because these early bridges were built before there were roads to get sub assemblies to the site. So they were shipped on wagons to the remote locations and then riveted together. They drove trains across them at speed for years before they were replaced by modern welded girders. And they worked well. So I put great faith in rivets. And they have not let me down.

I did use steel pop rivets. Aluminum ones are not strong enough, and will not pull the pieces together tightly enough before they pop. Aluminum ones are for gutters. Not car stuff. .

Sam

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To follow up that last post, which was made in haste at the end of the workday, and I was late to get home: If the idea of rivets does not appeal to you, and you can weld, or know someone who can, by all means go ahead and do that. But if you want to make this modification, and can't weld, or don't know someone who can, then you can still pursue this on your own with nothing more complicated or high tech than a decent pop rivet gun, and many, many pop rivets.

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The last step of finishing out the floor and new tunnel construction is to put a skin on the framing I made. This is made of sheet steel. I tend to save junk that is made of steel, and seldom buy steel for fabrication. I think these parts were all made from some old micro-wave cabinet.

I used the hand held jig saw to cut the parts out, which allows for very clean and precise cuts. Patterns for the parts were made of poster board available in the school supply section of most drug stores. I simply cut these until they fit with a pair of scissors and then traced around them with a sharpie on the metal stock. Once cut to fit, these parts are cleaned up with a file to smooth out the edges, and then pop riveted into place on the tunnel frame.

The top most piece is held on with screws for servicing the trans from the top. I found it essential to fill my particular trans with oil from the top. I suppose if you had a fancy pump you could fill it from below.

I would like to point out once again that I made this tunnel long enough, and tall enough that the trans could be pulled without running into the stock floor, and thus making it impossible to pull the trans without pulling the engine. The end result is that the tunnel is square on the back side, and sits about 4" or so above the stock floor. This looks fine once you get used to it. I have placed an inexpensive plastic storage bin/console behind it to hold junk such as pens and change etc. and the pair look quite nice together. Eventually I will replace this plastic piece with something nicer.

This steel skin is not the finished surface. I later made a cap for it all from sheet aluminum. The decorative cap is wide enough to overlap the carpet, which folds up behind it. This is fairly thick aluminum. I would guess maybe .065 or so. The sides and back of it were formed and bent down to cover with a minimum of seams. There are 4 rivets at each corner on the back side only, and four decorative screws fasten it to the top plate. I sanded the final piece to give it a satin texture.

The shifter boot is a leather thing intended for some imported econobox kind of thing. These employ an elastic at the bottom to hold them in place. I had to make a metal ring for the top of the "console" cover (the aluminum cover) for the leather boot to snap around. I cut this from the same aluminum and spaced it up from the console with a piece of 1/8" plywood cut to the same circular shape but slightly smaller than the aluminum ring. When the boot is stretched and snapped into place it covers the screws used to hold this ring system in place.

Next I will cover the drive shaft option I chose.

Sam

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Today's installment concerns the drive shaft. There are many, many ways to go about this. But, I prefered to go new, and professionally built.

YOur best friend for this would be a good, local truck servicing facility. There is one in my area called NV Supply, which stands for Northern Virginia. They supply all the heavy mechanical repair parts for trucks. Since drive shafts often need repair or replacement on trucks, a good service facility will have the set up to make any shaft you wish, with any yokes and universals you might need, to any length you request and balance it for you. AT the time I had mine made it cost me just $155. That has been about 9 years as I recollect now.

I had them supply new universal end caps and Ford slide yoke. I told them which trans I was using, and what rear I had, and they did all the rest. They asked me to slide the yoke all the way int,o the trans, and measure center to center to the rear end U joint and subtract a certain amount, which I think was 1/2".

I watched him make the shaft. It took maybe 45 minutes for him to cut the tube, weld the end caps on, and fit the universals in. Then He spun it on a machine and balanced it, and painted it at the same time. He sprayed it while it was spinning. This shaft has never given me a moments trouble.

There are other approaches you can use. You can get two shafts, and cut and splice them. And you can get a conversion U joint which will allow you to put a Ford yoke on a Mopar shaft. I preferred to use professional services using state of the art equipment. You can also find shops who will do this mail order. Or E-order if you will. This would be a good choice as well. I liked to talk to people face to face, and see the product when I pay for it if possible.

Next installment will be the support cross member for the trans.

Sam

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great write up so far sam, but pictures help out a ton too

-Mike

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I am the Guardian, I hate helos, everything leaks.......