How to mate a 8BA to a T170?

[Steve/IL]

Originally Posted by 36coupe

If they are both 10 spline is that enough? or do i need a T170 10" clutch?

Lindsay,

See response #8 of your thread.

If you have a early Ford pressure plate, use a Late 70s Ford Granada 10" clutch disc to fit the T170 input shaft splines. Better yet use the whole Granada diaphragm clutch and pressure plate assembly for easy effort clutch pedal actuation. This set up bolts directly to the your early Ford flywheel. Use early Ford pressure plate bolts!

If you want to use the Ford bell housing shown in your pictures, you will still need the tubular spacer from MEC to use the early Ford throw out bearing on the T170 input shaft. Normally the spacer comes with the MEC trans adapter. Gene calls his adapter a Ford Top Loader adapter. I imagine that Gene will sell you the spacer separately.

Get a new early Ford pilot bearing. Once you get all the required parts together, install the flywheel and bell housing without the pilot bearing and the clutch and pressure and test fit the trans. If the trans does not bolt up flush with the bell housing, the end of the T170 input shaft is bottoming out in the flywheel. In my case, I had the remove approximately 5/16" from the end of the T170 input. Do not cut any more off the end of the input shaft than absolutely necessary.

Steve

[36coupe]

10” 1-1/16” 10 spline is the T170 clutch disc

I have a bellhousing that looks like this and the t170 looks something like this.
I enlarged the hole on the rear of the bellhousing to match front of the T170 as per what Ron said.

I found this pressure plate and clutch on rock auto under 53 ford

I’ll take pictures of the stuff I have gathered up so far. Stamped steel bellhousing and t170
I’ll check the end of the crank, 52 Canadian merc 4” crank.

Try not to confuse things too much but what is the difference between the 3 finger pressure plate and multiple finger pressure plate?

[rotorwrench]

That bell appears to be the one used on the shoe box ford cars. They use the fulcrum type throw out arm. Only the Ford cars of the early 8BA era used that set up. The 49 & 50 (maybe the 51) Ford cars had a cast in fitting on the side of the transmission for the clutch release crank. The 52 & 53 ford cars had swing pedals so the set up was different. Anything can be adapted but the hogs head and Wilcap adapter with the rotating fork type clutch release mechanism would be the easiest one to adapt for an early Ford application or perhaps the MEC or MAC adapter on a half bell. It all depends on what application you want.

There is lots of stuff for the GM T5 out there but the T170 is a bit different. This can make it more of a challenge but it would likely be worth it. The position of the shift tower is good and a 3-speed with 4th gear overdrive ain't bad either.

[36coupe]

Originally Posted by rotorwrench

That bell appears to be the one used on the shoe box ford cars. They use the fulcrum type throw out arm. Only the Ford cars of the early 8BA era used that set up. The 49 & 50 (maybe the 51) Ford cars had a cast in fitting on the side of the transmission for the clutch release crank. The 52 & 53 ford cars had swing pedals so the set up was different. Anything can be adapted but the hogs head and Wilcap adapter with the rotating fork type clutch release mechanism would be the easiest one to adapt for an early Ford application or perhaps the MEC or MAC adapter on a half bell. It all depends on what application you want.

There is lots of stuff for the GM T5 out there but the T170 is a bit different. This can make it more of a challenge but it would likely be worth it. The position of the shift tower is good and a 3-speed with 4th gear overdrive ain't bad either.

I’m starting to realize I could use a different set up since it is going into a 36. The bell came with the merc engine I picked up.

[Scottie]

Yep installed one in my 50 Bonus a couple of years ago used an adapter available from Macsspeed locally here in NZ. Had to go to a 10" clutch and redrill the flywheel for the pressure plate but used standard throw out bearing with a bush supplied to sleeve the carrier out and original linkage. Works a treat. Also came with adapter for the speedo drive. Great improvement to the truck with a more relaxed cruise, my only niggle is 1st and 2nd very close but got over that pretty quickly.

[rotorwrench]

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Here is a link to Macsspeed's stuff in NZ. http://www.macsspeed.com/index.php/p...inium-castings. I think the early Ford one can be made to work but the Ford top loader/T5 one should be ready to go as is. The MEC should also be made to work but a person would have to call them to verify what it is set up for. I'm pretty sure the Ford pattern on the F150 T170 transmissions is different than most GM patterns. It's a Ford pattern so it may be similar to the Ford type top loaders.