How much crossmember cutting will this take?

[Garethw]

I picked up a 42RH recently for my 65 Valiant. I’ve read a lot of swap posts and it’s pretty obvious the hoop in the torsion bar crossmember has to be trimmed. All these posts seem to be in 67+ cars. Wondering who has put this transmission in an early A and how much trimming was required. Also, what’s the angle of engine supposed to be at? Planning to modify the original trans mount or just fab a new one.

 

[pishta]

Get the motor and trans where it will fit them shim up the diff snout to equal the down angle of the trans output shaft. As long as they are slightly pinion low at ride height you should be OK. ie. 7 down at trans should be about 5 up at pinion to equal maybe pinion down -2 at drive height. You want a little wrap up to equal 0. AS for the cross member...your torsion bars anchor in that piece so you have to keep it intact where the anchors are, youll need to make a bridge across the sectioned out part to keep it strong. Not sure how much wider the trans is at this point but if it doesnt fit, you must section out and rebuild the gap.

 

[Garethw]

The rear end is being swapped with a Ford 8.8 and isn't in the car yet. Car is a few feet off the ground now for sheet metal work and floors being done. Thought I'd mod the crossmember for the trans now, maybe easier with most of the floors currently being out. I can bolt the trans to the engine and drop it in for fitment. To make sure I read you right, you're saying the transmission output shaft should angle downward (trailing edge down) at about 7deg while the pinion should angle 5deg down (yoke side down), such that the difference between them (that the ujoints will see) is 2deg? I made a diagram.

 

[pishta]

opposite...you want sum of both angles to be close to 0 or -2 down at pinion for a wrap up to 0, like this exaggerated pic.
Your more likely to have the motor at 0 and then have the pinion down at ~-2 so when it wraps up under load it is close to 0. pinion will climb under load until the snubber hits or the springs stop it.

found a great pic

 

[Garethw]

Gotcha! Thanks for help. Then I’ll fab the trans mount to set the engine level in the car. Then I’ll adjust the pinion to be complementary or 2deg down.

 

[pishta]

Its under the '65 whipple SC' thread. Massive cradle off the bottom of the crossmember but top may still be intact?

 

[Garethw]

That’s a nice looking solution. I may rethink my plan now.

 

[MonkeyMadness]

Hello,
if you check out my build you can see what I did to get that trans to fit in my 65
1965 MMP Barracuda 5.9EFI/46RE IRS Whipple SC
The chop n cutting start on page 4
1965 MMP Barracuda 5.9EFI/46RE IRS Whipple SC
Good luck with your build ;-)

 

[Garethw]

I read your build, and love it! If you have a spare of that u-shaped piece I could use that! Looks like you had very little working of the tunnel itself to fit. And I'm putting in a 42RH compared to your 46, which I think is bigger.

 

[MonkeyMadness]

Yes the Front case is smaller but the OD unit is about the same size. I'll look and see if we have a piece of the square U. We're running a skeleton crew at the moment so may be some time before they'll tool up to bend it if we don't have it lying around