Auto to 4-Speed Swap

Hey all! I've been reading some of the great stuff you guys have provided on doing a swap from a column shift to 4-Speed on the floor. I was wondering about the cross member though. Other than welding in the tranny hump, and finding an A-833 with the right shifter and linkages and stuff, does this need to be replaced as well?
Thanks, more questions to come!

The cross members are the same. If you have a 904 auto the drive shaft will be too long.

Yes the cross members are the same. And when I did it to my 66 Dart I used the same drive shaft.

Yes, crossmembers are the same.
Driveshaft should be the right length, but when I did my swap I also got the driveshaft from the donor car cause the 4speed has a larger output shaft and the yoke for it takes the larger u-joint. I had to use the driveshaft and yoke from the 4speed car, and used a conversion u-joint at the back to connect to my 8-3/4 which took the smaller u-joint.
Just some things to think about.

You can get the yoke that fits the A833/A727 in the smaller u-joint size. That is what I did when I went from the 3spd manual to the A833OD.

The hump can be an issue, depending on where it comes from, who's doing the welding and how they go about it. The problem I saw was the PO slapped one in my Duster before I bought it and basically botched the whole job. He used some really thin, crappy repo piece and located it incorrectly so that you could not remove the shifter. It only takes a fraction of an inch out of place to make it impossible to remove the shifter, if you ever need to for any reason.

So I basically just tore it out and fabricated my own from scratch with sheetmetal stock.

Ace, I do not know what you wound up with for a hump but the hole you cut in the floor of an A-body is huge and an A-body hump only fits in one place. The easist way to remove the shifter is to unbolt the tranny cross member and let the tranny drop down.

Like I said, it depends on who's doing it and how they go about it. Unbolting the tranny for shifter R&R seems like alot of extra work when there's only two bolts holding the shifter on (talking about a 4sp.).

Unbolting 4 bolts you have clear access to so the tranny drops down giving clear access to the two bolts on the shifter seems like a lot less hassle then trying to get access to the bolts up in the hump. I don't think it took more than 20-30 minutes to install the new shifter into my car this past winter using that method.

It takes me about 5 minutes to get my shifter out.

The cross members are the same. If you have a 904 auto the drive shaft will be too long.
A body 833s are about the same length as a 904.

A body 833s are about the same length as a 904.


I stand corrected. Sorry if this caused anyone else a problem. Thanks for straightening me out kchristopher. I have done 3 E bodies and had to use the 727 driveshaft. I just put the A body 4 speed in my Dart and the 904 driveshaft is the same. I just need to change the Front yoke to bolt it in. This is my first A body swap. Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks..lol. :wav:

The crossmembers are 99% the same. About '67 - '68 the 4 speeds had a different crossmember part number than the auto and 3 speed. I could not tell you what this difference is.


Chuck