One wire lock-up, 4 spd automatic w overdrive into A-body.

It's amazing what a 4 inch angle grinder and a few cans of satin black paint will do for fabrication work. I stuffed the engine/trans combo under the car again, and jacked the back of the trans up until it started to lift the car slightly, then let it back down a half an inch. There is plenty of clearance for the rear of the transmission now. I can actually lift the rear of the trans too high and at to much of a forward angle.

There is one little corner at the very top of my modification towards the front of the car that could stand to be trimmed off another 1/2 inch. If you look in the second to last picture, you can see it is the first thing that the trans hits when it is lifted up too high. I'm going to trim it back slightly to give the engine room to plenty of room to torque over. I have the interlocking Shumacher mounts, but they still allow for some engine movement.

Tomorrow, Ill pull the engine/trans back out, modify that little corner and drill my new bolt hole for the driver's side.(recall, I cut that off earlier) re-install the engine/trans and begin making templates for the bolt on crossmember. My exhaust is relatively close to where the new mount goes, plus I installed a crossover tube there. If you look closely at the last picture, you can see there's not a lot of room to build a large rear mount, so it will have to be lean and mean.

After seeing everything in place under the car, it looks like I could use some 1/4" or slightly thicker steel plate and reinforce it with some strategically placed gussets to fabricate a simple yet strong rear mount that bolt solidly to the original location. I'll make a trip to the local metal scrapyard to source the steel. They have much better prices there. I think I will pick-up a 1' by 2' 1/4" or thicker steel plate, cut it out to match my template and heat it up cherry red to make the bends needed to get it in the shape I need it to clear the exhaust and line up with the torsion crossmember.

Once I have that part made, I'll make the four side plates that the bolts go through and weld them to the longer and reshaped transmission mount plate. It will be easier to visualize once the templates are made.

Man I love installing the engine/trans/k-member through the bottom. it is so much faster and easier.