What’s sad is a couple of the worst bell housings I’ve indicated in were factory units that I know were OE to the car.
One was my 72 Demon. I wanted to buy a scatter shield but my dad didn’t want to because he said it would be way off.
When it came time to indicate the bell housing in, it was .080 out from about 4 to 11 o’clock. My dad thought I was BS’ing him because he knew I didn’t want it so he crawled under there and verified it.
So I ran down to the speed shop and bought a scatter shield. It was only out .020 so I sent it. I used that thing until about 2006 and I bought it in 1981.
I think two others I found were out like that. All OE and they all shifted fine, didn’t eat pilot bushings or break the bearing retainer.
My buddy had a Chevy Nova that was killing pilot bushings and it finally broke the bearing retainer.
He checked it and it was .100 out. You could shift it. It just ate pilot bushings about every 3-4 months.
I was stunned it was out that far and the gear box still went in.