will a truck 883 work in an a body?

[tobysoldblue]

Specifically an 81 model,overdrive 4 speed.I can get one,that looks to be in extremely good shape.It has the shifter,rods,etc with it.I think i can get this transmission pretty cheap,and would like to put in my 71 dart.I know,i know,these arent good for performance,im more concerned with gas milage right now,and not having to run a 3500 stall converter.And,its so fun to rip through the gears once in a while,lol.I figure i can use this tranny until it blows,unless it just wont fit.What are the differences any ways,tailshaft length?Will the factory truck shifter work?Have any of you guys ever tried to use this tranny in your car before?

 

[gts340]

I know the trans will fit an A-body, it's got the correct shifter mount location. I'm not sure about the shifter itself, but you never know. I had an 84 with this trans and I pulled it just in case when I had to scrap the truck.

 

[Valiantsignet20]

The tailshaft is longer placing the mount back further. You can fab up a new crossmember. I had one in the 64 before I found a short shaft one. You will have to shorten your drive shaft also. The shifter will work but you will need to get linkage for your year/series. Even if you dont use the trany do get the bellhousing, you may want to find a short shaft and the truck bell is for the 10.5 clutch. As far as handling the power it WILL. And later on for performance you can change the rear to ungodly low and still drive it on the interstate.

 

[dgc333]

I have one in my 68 A-body Barracuda. It bolts right in if you have, no cross member changes but you will need to have the drive shaft shortened by approx 3 3/8".

Here is what i had to do;

1. The front input bearing retainer is larger than the non OD A833 so you will either need an OD bell housing, swap the bearing retainer for the smaller (4.8") one or have the OD one machined down. I was fortunate when I did the swap I got the bell housing, flywheel, clutch and shifter at the same time. from the junk yard.

2. The output shaft on the tranny is larger than the 3spd manual or A904 automatic so you will need the slip yoke off the drive shaft from the doner or one from an A727 or another A833. The drive shaft shop I had my drive shaft cut and balanced at stocked new ones so you can check there too.

3. Neither of the shifter mounts on the long tail shaft A833OD tranny are in the correct position. You will need to fab up a bracket that bolts to the rear one and positions the shifter forward to the proper A-body location. Bigblockdart.com has a nice diagram for one (would have made it easier for me if it was there when I did mine).

4. No modifications to the tranny mount cross member are required just swap the mount on your current tranny to the A833OD. But, the rear boss on the front shifter mount comes very close to the torsion bar cross member. In my case it would touch when the engine torqued in its mounts and would send a horrible vibration up through the body. You can either dent the cross member for clearance or do as I did and cut the boss off.

5. Initially I used the truck shifter with a handle I cut off an old three speed shifter (the truck handle is way to long and will hit the dash). You will need to get A-body shifter rods. The 3/4 rod does come close to the torsion bar cross member because of the reverse lever on the OD tranny but it clears. I latter purchased a new Hurst Indy shifter for an A-body. This is a screaming deal at $150 from Summit or Jegs, comes with the shifter, rods, new lever for the tranny, mount adapter and hardware. The handle is real short (7") and straight which I did not like so I picked up a handle for a couple of bucks at the local swap.

8. Don't know what you are swapping from to but you may have to play around with clutch forks and z-bar. My car was originally a 3spd manual. I had to use the truck bell housing because of the input beraing issue and the fact that the 3spd bell housing didn't have a 4spd mounting pattern. The clutch fork on the truck used a ball stud arrangement for its pivot and was stuck using the truck clutch fork. It was quite a bit longer but worked but because of the reduced leverage ratio I had to keep the clutch adjusted tight. When I swapped to a v8 the \6 fork I had is the same as a small block fork but I had to shorten the engine side of the z-bar by approx. 1" for the v8. The z-bar ball stud pivot from the \6 bell housing worked on the \6 truck bell housing but did not work on the v8 bell housing. The v8 Bell housing I picked up was also an OD unit and after 72 the postion the ball stud bolts to moved. You will need to go to some one like Brewers to get the right pivot bracket.