'69 Barracuda T56 swap, floor, cross member

[ESP47]

This step was a pain for me with the TKX. Common sense did not seem to apply the way I thought it would. Wound up just having to guess and check a few times until I got it dialed in.

 

[RustyRatRod]

Really good, clean work goin on here yall. All of you. Thanks for sharing.

 

[340sFastback]

I think you’ll be ok honestly. If you look at my pinch weld I didn’t take the relief cuts all that far past the pinch, meaning that the area at the pinch didn’t change much. The bigger effect is past the pinch weld, so, rather than angling down and away it stays more flat.

It’s hard to tell from one picture of course, but even if you think about the tunnel coming straight out from the pinch weld I think you’ll have clearance

I haven't done anything to the pinch weld yet because I wanted to get Epoxy Primer on both sides of it first. But looking at yours and other installs it looks like the flange on the trans nearly touches the pinch weld. Sounds like it would be ideal for me to pie cut and flatten the pinch weld while K-Frame is out of the car. Once K-Frame is back in with engine I think its gonna be quite a bit more awkward/difficult of an effort.

 

[340sFastback]

Took wire wheel in drill and cleaned rear mating surface of block and crank surface. Very light pressure and the paint and surface rust came right off quickly. Then lightly went over with 180 grit sand paper. Flywheel torqued to 55 ft/pds and bellhousing 30 ft/pds cross tightened. Mounted dial on flywheel and looks like I need .014" offset dowel pins to move it up and slightly to the left. Afterwards put engine down on blocks since hoist tends to bleed down over time not safe to leave up on table.

 

[340sFastback]

Had to grind a 3/8" inch or so deep concave indentation into bell housing to clear the oil filter. Also a small amount on bottom of bell housing to clear the lower header tube. Could have dented the header but so far no header dents to date so didn't want to go that route.

Used a a Harbor Freight electric belt file with 3M 60 grit belts

 

[340sFastback]

Got dowel pins removed. One twisted right out with vice grips. Other one stuck. First drilled tapped 1/4 bolt hole in dowel and tried to pull it out with bolt but bolt snapped off where it meets dowel. Drilled out 1/4 bolt and drilled tapped 5/16. 5/16 threads stripped when I tried to use bolt to pull out. Then I was like gee what do I do now without messing engine block up? Took chiseled and hammer dented one side of the pin and that broke a lot of its grip free. Used vice grips and WD40 to twist it out. Several hours but block not damaged and they are out.

 

[goldduster318]

If anyone needs to get the dowels out again, drill and tap 1/4-20 and then run a full thread bolt in with a nut on it, put a deep socket over it and tighten the nut and it'll pull it right out.

 

[340sFastback]

If anyone needs to get the dowels out again, drill and tap 1/4-20 and then run a full thread bolt in with a nut on it, put a deep socket over it and tighten the nut and it'll pull it right out.

I did that on my first attempt. 1/4 bolt snapped off flush with the dowel pin. So maybe I should have used a Grade 8 threaded bolt?

 

[goldduster318]

I did that on my first attempt. 1/4 bolt snapped off flush with the dowel pin. So maybe I should have used a Grade 8 threaded bolt?

I understood it as you were tightening the bolt itself against something or using a slide hammer. I wasn't thinking you were holding the bolt still and tightening a nut on the bolt threads. Using that method I'm a lot more suprised if it twisted off flush. I would usually use at least a grade 5 but I have a lot of grade 8 stuff since tractor supply always sold them by weight and not by the piece.

 

[340sFastback]

I understood it as you were tightening the bolt itself against something or using a slide hammer. I wasn't thinking you were holding the bolt still and tightening a nut on the bolt threads. Using that method I'm a lot more suprised if it twisted off flush. I would usually use at least a grade 5 but I have a lot of grade 8 stuff since tractor supply always sold them by weight and not by the piece.

It was a long threaded screw which I screwed into dowel pin, used a deep socket, and a nut spun up the threads that rested on the socket. Then I held screw from turning and turned the nut up against the deep socket. The long screw snapped off right at the dowel pin. This long screw I had laying around in an old peanut butter jar with a bunch of other screws. So not sure what grade it was. Apparently low grade. So I would think grade 5 or 8 would have prevented it or at least reduced the chance of bolt snapping.

I drilled and tapped and used a long screw with nut up against socket etc based on research I did on the web. It is a very common technique and everyone says its full proof always works. Didn't work for me though cause screw snapped from the pulling force.

 

[340sFastback]

Ordered .014 offset dowels and positioned them at 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock or so position and was not not able to get runout within specs (first picture). Went ahead and ordered .007 offset installed facing 4 o-clock or 5 o'clock or so position and bellhousing fell right into spec right away (second picture). Loosening bellhousing and then re-tightening would change it .001 or so. So it seems to hold the tolerances fairly well.

Also, for final check I ran a bolt out of flywheel so magnetic base would ride closer to center of flywheel as Silver Sport recommends.

Anyway, can now proceed forward with getting engine/k-frame/trans into car.

 

[340sFastback]

Ordered offset dowels from RobbMC because his are a true .0496" specifically for mopar engines. Most vendors sell .500" offset dowels which are .004" too big for mopar engines:

RobbMcPerformance Bellhousing Alignment Dowels

 

[340sFastback]

Painted engine. Rechecked bell housing run out one more time and it was spot on so took indexing plate off of bell housing.

 

[75slant6]

Wow! You’ve done some amazing work.

 

[340sFastback]

Flattened out pinch weld between floor and firewall. Decided to flatten before engine/k-frame are put back in because there is a lot more room to work with those out of the way.

 

[340sFastback]

Passenger's side inner fender had a lot of chips and paint was discolored due to coolant hose leak years back. So decided to respray that panel before putting engine and k-frame back in. Rest of engine comp paint in good condition.

 

[340sFastback]

Painted K Frame and front suspension.

 

[340sFastback]

Installed engine/k-frame. Engine has been out of car for 7 months or so.

 

[JDMopar]

Awesome work! What's your procedure for installing engine/k frame from the bottom like that? Set the car down over it and hold the car up with jack stands, then reach over the top and pull the assembly up into place with the cherry picker? I've thought about doing it that way since I don't have a 2 post lift, but never done it.

 

[75slant6]

Awesome work! What's your procedure for installing engine/k frame from the bottom like that? Set the car down over it and hold the car up with jack stands, then reach over the top and pull the assembly up into place with the cherry picker? I've thought about doing it that way since I don't have a 2 post lift, but never done it.

After doing it once, you’ll always install them that way. I usually do engine, transmission and entire front suspension all at once. It makes it an easy one man job.

 

[340sFastback]

Awesome work! What's your procedure for installing engine/k frame from the bottom like that? Set the car down over it and hold the car up with jack stands, then reach over the top and pull the assembly up into place with the cherry picker? I've thought about doing it that way since I don't have a 2 post lift, but never done it.

I lower car down, move the engine/kframe around to line up kframe bolts, install kframe bolts, raise car up and put on jack stands. So no picking up of engine with cherry picker is required.

 

[340sFastback]

After doing it once, you’ll always install them that way. I usually do engine, transmission and entire front suspension all at once. It makes it an easy one man job.

Yeah I will never install from the top ever again way too hard and requires additional ppl removing/installing hood way too difficult. Dropping car onto engine kframe I can do it myself not even break a sweat easy peasy.

 

[340sFastback]

Car is back on its torsion bars once again.

Had to cut out forward section of floor and widen floor to get trans up high enough for trans cross member bolts to go in. Now bellhousing and trans lay hard up against the firewall with floor heat ducts directly above and firewall can't go up any higher.

It also appears my engine sits a good 1/2 to 1 inch farther rearward then other cars that did T56 swap. I can not move engine forward or TTI headers will lay on steering linkage. The engine always sat far back when the auto trans was in there. So this is causing the bellhousing trans to push firewall up and factory AC car with steel heat ducts directly above not able to move fire wall up any more.

Not able to get required clearance so cleaned up garage and walked away probably take a few days off.....

 

[72bluNblu]

I’m not sure it’s quite as bad as you think, but I could be wrong.

First, I don’t think your transmission is much different in its location than mine is. You can see that there’s just a sliver of mounting slot open here at the back of my crossmember and we use the same crossmember. I can’t quite tell looking at your pictures, but unless there was a change to the crossmember slots for the transmission mount I’d say our transmissions aren’t more than a 1/2” different in location because that’s about all there is for mine to go further back.

Next up is the floor clearance, where exactly is the interference on your car? Because you do have some room to raise the floor still, especially if the interference is at or behind the pinch. Changing the angle on the tunnel still will give you some room, and that can be done with some relief cuts/pie sections.

You can’t buy a ton of real estate if the interference is right at or in front of the pinch if it’s directly in the middle, but there’s some room there. And if the interference isn’t directly in the middle you have more room. On mine I know I made the tunnel a bit more square, and you have room to add there out toward the end of the ducts.

And the ducts are well, ducts. Even if the floor can’t move far enough without getting into the ducts, a pie shaped cut on the duct to oval the profile more wouldn’t render it ineffective

I have the later style heater box so that’s different on my car. And I have the QuickTime bell housing, is that a Silver Sport bell in yours?

 

[340sFastback]

@72bluNblu The bolt on the top of the trans is pressed hard up against the floor. The edge of the bellhousing is pressed hard up on the floor. The floor is pressed up onto the heat duct. The floor up to pinch weld has been removed just the firewall metal is left. I am going to pull that plastic off to get a better look next time I get out there:

The bottom edge of the trans is contacting the trans cross member. But I could slightly clearance the cross member to get around that issue:

Here is a side shot to show location of shifter relative to trans cross member. Offset arm is 2.75". Trans looks further back to me then other installs I have seen: