Has anyone successfully used the USCartool A500 Crossmember?

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With the car chassis level and shimmed on jack stands, I used two angle degree finders to set this in. I set one angle finder on the carb pad on the intake manifold, stuck the other to the machined pad for the timing cover. When carb base was at 0° dead level, the engine and trans were 3° angled down. I increased that to 4° and figure I can always shim up.

And yes, ya gotta cut quite a lot out of that hoop to make it fit.

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I think I will have to go to an OD trany now that the avg speed on our freeway is 80+ .... I dropped a set of 2.76s in but want both worlds. 3.55s or 3.91s should work well with OD.
 
You also got to be willing to cut some **** off the O/D unit. The piece on the RH side will hit the tunnel, and the piece removed on the LH side is so I can fit up the stock floor shift linkage.

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Tailshaft ears cut off and everything carved with rotary files to a more pleasing shape. It probably wont hit the tunnel, but I'm not taking a chance.

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What's everybody using for transmission lines for this? Will A904 pre bent lines work? Or did y'all make your own lines?
 
moparmat2000 said:
What's everybody using for transmission lines for this? Will A904 pre bent lines work? Or did y'all make your own lines?
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Interesting question. From what I've seen, the OD transmissions use 3/8 lines while the 904s used 5/16 lines. Myself planned on using prebent lines to the radiator, but I am going to fabricate lines to graft in an auxiliary cooler in front of the radiator.
 
I have a set of 92 dakota V8 tranny cooler lines. Tried mocking them up. They are not going to be a good fit. Especially with the floor shift setup I will use. I gotta figure something out.
 
moparmat2000 said:
I have a set of 92 dakota V8 tranny cooler lines. Tried mocking them up. They are not going to be a good fit. Especially with the floor shift setup I will use. I gotta figure something out.
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If you look at the brass fittings in the case, I believe their I.D. is only 1/4 inch. So, there's that. I'd go with the prebent lines.
 
Do the fittings in the A904 come out in the same spots as the 42RH A500? I dont have an A904 to compare anything to. If everythings in the same places on both, I can get fittings from an A904 in the junkyard, and just buy repop lines.
 
moparmat2000 said:
Do the fittings in the A904 come out in the same spots as the 42RH A500? I dont have an A904 to compare anything to. If everythings in the same places on both, I can get fittings from an A904 in the junkyard, and just buy repop lines.
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As far as I remember, yes. I'm working with a 46rh and it's the same as the 727.
 
Any issues with the TV linkage and cable hitting the rear line? I have a jegs TV cable kit I was going to use if I couldent adapt the stocker off a V8 Dakota.
 
moparmat2000 said:
Any issues with the TV linkage and cable hitting the rear line? I have a jegs TV cable kit I was going to use if I couldent adapt the stocker off a V8 Dakota.
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I haven't quite got there yet, but I'm using the whole fuel injected 318/46rh setup out of a 95 Dakota, so I'm sure I'll be tweeting things along the way.
 
This sumbitch fits effing tight. Gonna have to mark the floor pan, pull it out, and hammer a coup lo e clearance bumps in the floor pan with a shaping hammer and a lead shot bag in a few spots. Maybe junior340 can chime in on how he redid his linkage for the stock shifter. The one shift rod for my automatic floor shifter hits the side of the OD unit. I will have to mod it to fit.

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Added drain holes on the sides, boxed it in a little more. Made lower bracket for modified stock floor shift linkage rod

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You will also need to strategically beat out spots in the tunnel for clearance in at least 2 spots minimum.

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Another issue with the A500 - A518 42RH 46RH is the kickdown cable setup. You can buy a Lokar setup for the kickdown, but I prefer stock stuff. Easier to find replacement parts. Trans in the pix is a 42RH. The cable is off of a 1992 dakota V8. The lever on the transmission, and cable bracket holding the lever are off of a 3/4 ton ram van of about the same year. This lifts the cable about 1" to clear the rear transmission cooler port. The cable will be routed forward on the top center of the transmission. I will make a bracket with a clamp off one of the trans bellhousing bolts to secure the cable. I also picked up the ram van cable as everything is pretty cheap in the salvage, but it had an extra foot of length on it. The dakota cable makes a nice curved loop before the crossmember

Another member here made a similar cable attach bracket for the carburetor with steel angle iron off the carburetor rear 2 mounting bolts. I thought it was a great idea so I somewhat copied it. Before cutting into things I made a template off the original throttle body noting cable bracket location to idle, and WOT. Then noting the same range of movement on an edelbrock 600 I plan to use. Then i duplicated that on my bracket. I had an old throttle cable bracket and cut that to fit the angle iron, along with cutting the kickdown cable attach bracket off the old throttle body. Edelbrock makes a bolt on stud end to use this stock cable with a carburetor. End result is the throttle feels smooth all the way to WOT, and the kickdown operates smooth through it's full range of travel.

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when you reinforce things where you remove a portion of the hoop above the transmission cross member, is there way to treat what you install to make it more rigid, or a different material to use?
 
So I'm working on my A500 install and asked a friend who is an industrial fabricator and a fabricator of Mopar drag cars to look at the situation. All those drag cars are wagons (Wagons of Steel Racing). Regarding the structural integrity of the modification to the frame member running over the trans hump, we planned out cutting out some of that member and reinforcing the remains like several on this thread. He pointed out that none of their C-bodies ever had that member. When you remove the trans, you have to take all the load off the torsion bars or the frame member on each side would bend in under the pressure of the torsion bars when you remove the crossmember. This reinforces the idea of the very heavy USCT transmission cross member taking a lot of that load. Just some more info to put into the mix here, and probably a good idea to use the C-body protocol when removing the cross member to avoid unnecessary distortion after these mods.

By the way, in several of these builds, either both inner crossmember bolts are moved or none. It seems that most of the issue is on the drivers side, has anyone moved one bolt and not the other? with 20/20 hindsight does that seem it would have been adequate?
 
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