Building your own Transmission adapter

[Deuce-Merchant]

We got Dads 32 on the road and I put about 200kms on it.
We have 4:11 gears in it, so it is kinda slow for sure.
Also the transmission had a bad bearing noise in it and it was getting worse, thats what you get by buying other peoples junk.
My friend at work donated a 88 Ford Ranger 5spd overdrive tranny, and this is how I killed two birds with one tranny.

Here it is when I got it

I had another toploader sitting here, so I could measure from it without having to take the truck apart just yet.
With all the measuring done, the input shaft of the Ranger tranny is 3/4" longer than the toploader.
I searched in the junk and was lucky enough to find a piece of plate, just the right size.
I have another friend that is a Machinist, so he gave me some tips.I put a large piece of pipe in the Lathe and faced it to make it true.

I drilled a small hole in the plate where I found the center of the hole needed to be.
I then ran up the live center and pushed the plate against the pipe.

Then welded the plate to the pipe

Then I turned the center hole out to be a couple thou larger than the snout on the front of the tranny.

I removed the front bearing retainer off the old Toploader and machined a groove in the plate for it to fit.
This will align the bell housing perfectly with the tanny as the bell housing fits tight over this retainer

The heads of the bolts have to be countersunk below the surface of the plate for clearance, so off to KMS to buy a 1" endmill.
Used the live center on the lathe again to center it and piece of cake

Torched off the extra metal and ground it up.
I did need to turn down both the front and back surfaces to be sure they were perfectly parallel with each other.
Here is a pair of pics with the original and the new tranny with the adapter installed so you can see how they look compared to one another.

 

[Deuce-Merchant]

The only other thing I needed to do was the pilot brg.
I removed the old style brass bushing and purchased a new bearing to fit the Ranger input shaft.
I machined out the bushing and tapped in the new bearing and it went back in, no problems.

I removed the clutch disc from the Bronco clutch and it was very close to the dimensions of the Ranger disc, so I just swapped the discs.I still have the same clutch, release brg, and bellhsg, that was the easy part.

I just put the tranny in today and it all lined up and the clutch releases and all is good.
We just have to shorten our driveline,hook up the shifter and make a lower floor panel to cover it up.
I will post more as I get farther.

 

[parklane]

Excellent job as usual.

 

[CDNflatlander]

Another great post Kelly! Thanks for the effort and for sharing. I liked the driven end mill / on center using the tailstock; I couldn't see how you 'braced' it on the cross-slide, but I'm sure it didn't cause too much grief as your finished product looked great.
Thanks!
Greg.

 

[tinmann]

Yumpin' Yimminy, Yohnson...... that's a fine piece of ingenuity.... and machine work.


Speaking of fine work..... any progress shots of the Yeti Wheel?

 

[Olrodder]

Nice job, and thanks for sharin it with us.
Clarke

 

[Deuce-Merchant]

Greg
It doesnt show it in the pic, but I had the plate well clamped to the tool post.
Still moved around a bit and chipped some teeth on the Mill, but it worked.
I should machine the Endmill down, so I can put it in the drill press, that would work better.

Tinmann, the English(Yeti) wheel hasnt seen the light of day for a long while.
I took it apart to paint it and it never got back together.
Here is what it looked like before it went into hiding.

 

[b-bob]

Good stuff, Kelly! You're a pretty smart fella.

 

[bct]

thanks kelly....i can see myself useing the faced off pipe trick on stuff thats too big for my lathe chuck.....nice work ....

 

[joeymac64]

t 5 adapter

just some thoughts on your great work there i play with the fe motors 390 427 ect when you want to do the t 5 change on these engines the truck bellhousings are 3/4 of an inch deeper than a car bellhousing so if you switch them out you dont need a spacer plate i have also taken the input shaft out and put them in a lathe and set up a grinding wheel and have ground off the 3/4 of an inch off the shaft and splines with no problms so i was wondering if the 302 289 truck bellhousings are any different than a car
great work there by the way always admire one so handy

 

[shane2290]

great job Deuce !!


Cheers Shane

 

[tiquer]

Very nice Kelly now pops truck is set for the indy with that over drive .

 

[John in Oz]

You do some really neat work there Kelly, looks like this should be saved in a tech section on how to's. Nice work, your Dad will be real proud to say his son did a lot of the work on his truck I'm sure.

 

[Corsair]

Wow, some excellent machine work. Wish I had access to equipment, the training, and skills to pull some of this off.
Ian