Transmission etc.

After pulling my hair out while working on clearance issues, I decided to do something easy and straightforward for a change. I'd install the five-speed transmission adapter. Auto Restorations sells a complete kit to put a T-5 transmission into the Model A with the stock motor and bell housing. Because we changed the motor we only had to purchase part of their kit; basically everything from the back of the transmission to the rear end. So the torque tube was removed from the rear end and this nifty little adapter was installed. The pinion gear is removed from the drive shaft and put onto a stub shaft with extra bearings into this housing, which also relocates the speedometer gear.

Well, it was supposed to be straightforward. The directions said to pre-assemble it and locate the speedometer gear on the stub shaft to line up with the slot in the adapter housing. Simple, BUT then it says to drill and pin the speedometer gear to the stub shaft. I guess all the gears they used were not hardened! I tried the small torch trick to anneal the speedometer gear but to no avail; that gear was harder than the hubs of hell. So I finally made a small sleeve out of mild steel (see pic 2), and tack welded this to the side of the speedometer gear. I then pinned that to the stub shaft. That took about an extra two hours more than I had planned. Now a regular driveline can be coupled to the original rear end housing.

After hanging the motor and transmission over the frame to decide how to orientate them in between the frame rails, things began to get trickier. The first thing that had to be modified was the front cross member in order to make room for the crank pulley. With a little torch work and some grinding it looks like it did from the factory. The next step included following the directions supplied by the folks at Auto Restorations (who we bought the five-speed adapter from.) We cut a little off the back of the transmission to allow it to clear the cross member.

Middle cross member fabrication: Here is one of those things that you just don't plan on being so complicated but it does take time. The front radius rods originally come together under the bell housing and mount to a ball pivot point. The ball is clam-shelled between two cup shaped brackets, no problem! Just fabricate a cross member and bolt them on, right? But after cleaning off the grease from the upper bracket it became apparent that it was reinforced by a 1.700" bore in the bottom of the factory bell housing. It also became apparent that it needed this support as it was cracking apart after years of use. So, into the milling machine with a chunk of 1" steel to machine a support flange that I could weld to the bottom of the cross member. A few more hours of fab work than expected, but it was definitely done right!