pivot ball alignment

I seem to have an alignment problem here

View attachment 1716236381

That is a 734 10-1/2" bellhousing and a Brewer's BSB734 ball stud bracket, which should work on this 71 Duster.

The engine is installed and the trans mount is installed, so I'm pretty sure those are where they should be. The engine mount brackets and biscuits are from Schumacher and are bolted to the back side of the block ears.

The fenderwell side mount seems untouched from the factory.

View attachment 1716236386

Were those installed in A/T cars? Because this car has a D31 904 transmission code on the tag.

The car came with some big block bellhousings so is it possible that was added in the wrong place to accommodate a big block at some point in time?

Hopefully someone has ideas on what could be wrong. In the meantime I'm on the hunt for a photo of the wheel well area for an original manual trans car.

In your picture, is this a bolt?
20231112_183054.jpg

The ballstud bracket gets welded to the frame, yours appears to be bolted in place. And that bolt is using the hole that the ballstud should be using. Post #4 shows the proper location of the plate and the spot welds.

While the automatic cars didn't usually get the bracket (some did, Ma Mopar and all) all the cars got the hole for the ballstud. The automatic cars just got a plug, like this....
IMG_4084.JPG

Looks to me like someone bolted that bracket to the car using the hole you need for the ballstud.
No, AT cars did not have the manual trans bell crank mount.

In the FSM the plate seems to be laying on its side compared to yours which would suggest it might not be in the correct locationView attachment 1716236457

As a rule, automatic transmission cars didn’t have that mount installed. But in reality, it wasn't all that uncommon. Orders changed on the production line, assembly line workers put brackets on the wrong cars, etc.

Somewhere here there's a thread discussing this with several members that have factory AT cars that have brackets, I did a quick look but didn't find it.