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Old 03-18-2018, 08:01 PM   #18
36coupe
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Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Eastcoast
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Default Re: 51 mercury bellhousing

Quote:
Originally Posted by rotorwrench View Post
Take care welding on that cast iron. It should be preheated even if you braze some fittings on. The casting would likely crack otherwise. A simple spacer could be whittled out of steel plate or what have you to make an adapter. It might be better than welding on that bell housing. I measured one of my old early 1951 Mercury R10 overdrive transmissions at the input protrusion and its pretty near 6-inches from the face of the case to the tip of the input pilot stub. If yours is 6 1/2 inches then you might need a 1/2" in there somewhere to keep from trimming off the pilot stub on the T170-FT.

The top loader Ford 4-speeds also had the dual bolt pattern but all 8 bolt holes had access due to the simple steel cover plate on top. This way they could work on both early and late Ford bell housings. It appears that this practice was carried over but the case was redesigned to fit the overdrive into the place where the 3rd gear used to be for the 3+1 overdrive transmissions. This eliminated the usage of one of the top bolt holes and the other one is just barely usable if opened up.
The forth hole almost looks like it could be accessed from inside the case.
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