Tremec 5 speed swap into a '70 Charger

[Kern Dog]

The transmission mount has  two 3/8" carriage bolts that secure it to the crossmember. One was in crooked when I pulled it from the box and when I tried to straighten it, the meager welds broke loose. Not a big deal...I just cleaned them up and tack welded both so they should hold together.

[Kern Dog]

The console top plate:
Remember that the opening for the shifter is smaller than a stock 4 speed. I took the automatic console pieces and modified them to work.
I bought a kit of 4 speed spec vinyl overlays but since they wont fit, I needed an alternative. I bought a roll of shelf paper for $9 at Home Depot to see how it will work.

[metallicareload99]

So far, yeah...THIS has been the LEAST fun, the most frustrating and the LEAST rewarding part. I was out there again today looking to verify the numbers. I repositioned the dowels in several ways to see what results I could get.
I was a dumb ass and didn't think to record where they were positioned from yesterday. This meant that I had a hell of a time getting it back into spec.
Yeah, I spent three hours today messing around with it. I had the bell off maybe 10 times. I clocked the pins multiple times. I read the instructions numerous times. This was a very frustrating day. I kept getting conflicting numbers that made no sense. I was yelling, cussing and bitching and not having any fun at all.
The original dowels indicated that I was .027 to the right almost  horizontal, something like 9:30 to 3:30. I was having trouble understanding that a POSITIVE number meant that the bell had to come back to get that number closer to zero. This meant that I had to point the dowel offset (High points) toward the positive number areas. I finished with it slightly better than yesterday but not knowing exactly why.
Once I got inside and talked to the Wife about it, I made sense of it. Point the offset/High points to the POSITIVE numbers.....IT is pretty easy when you understand it. Still, when I read in Mopar Action where Rick Ehrenberg states....Spend the 20 minutes to get this right I want to kick someone in the dick. 20 minutes my ass......

Nice work, I think I spent almost as much time just setting up the dial indictor, only to find out I was ok. It seems like half the people out there don't check this but get away with it, but imagine if you put this all together and it didn't shift at all    A-833s are less sensitive to this than modern trans, but I think it's time well spent.  Ask me how much fun it is to drop a new engine in a car, that you can't drive because it can not shift gears at all  

I went to bolt up the flywheel today and....it will not fit. The flange on the crank is 2.17 and the bore on the flywheel is 2.15. I checked 2 other stock flywheels and found that they measure the same as this new flywheel.

Where did the flywheel come from, 130 tooth?  The new flywheel I put on my cast crank 440 was tight, harder to get off than on. I imagine you could take a hone and open up the flywheel a thou?

[Kern Dog]

The flywheel will have to be bored over or the crank hub machined down.
I'm not going to remove the crank.
I'll need to get a truly accurate measurement of the crank hub and then find a machine shop that can ream out the flywheel. It will mean that the flywheel is for this engine only from now on but so what...

[Kern Dog]

Finding someone that can properly bore out the hole in this flywheel isn't easy. Three calls and so far none of them know how to do it properly.

[Kern Dog]

I finally found a guy that says he can do it. The trouble for most people is, the hub in the middle is where they usually establish all reference measurements so  since it is the bore itself that needs work, they have to find some other way to mount it and machine the bore.
Here are the better calipers.

[Kern Dog]

Here is the number I got from the crank hub. Looks like 2.178 to me.

[Kern Dog]

I measured the flexplate too. The numbers varied a bit. I'm going to take this to the machinist along with the flywheel. I am guessing that he would machine the hole to the smallest size on this flexplate.

[GreenMachine]

I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but for just .002", I would heat up the flywheel a couple hundred degrees to expand the hole and then mount it. I don't see any obvious harm in that other than you'll need heat to remove it too.

That's how the ring gear is installed on the flywheel.

Edit: Just realized it's closer to .020" smaller, heat probably won't work.

[Kern Dog]

The crank measured 2.178. The flywheel measured 2.152. That is .026. Too much for me.
I took the flywheel to a shop today. The man said it should be done next week.

[Kern Dog]

The flywheel is done. I picked it up today and bolted it up using Locktite and torqued to factory specs.

[Kern Dog]

Clutch looks a bit different from others I've seen.

[Kern Dog]

I decided to use studs for the 7/16" backwards bolts.

[Kern Dog]

Next up was to measure  a few things. First I measured the depth from the face of the bell to the fingers on the pressure plate.

[Kern Dog]

The last picture was from the SST instructions. My actual measurement was 3 7/16".

Next was to compress the throwout bearing then measure from the outside of the nearing to the transmission case. I got 3 5/16" The difference was 1/8", the minimum allowable.

[Kern Dog]

I thought the bellhousing was on for good but the instructions call for it to come off and get mounted to the transmission to set up the hydraulic line and side cover.

[Kern Dog]

Now the throwout bearing stays with the bellhousing.

[Kern Dog]

The clutch master cylinder had a remote reservoir mounted up near the brake master cylinder. The fluid will gravity feed to the master cylinder down at the firewall. I cut and attached the hose.

[Kern Dog]

The braided hydraulic line will attach to the clutch master cylinder where you see the yellow cap.

[Kern Dog]

The wiring needs to be done before the transmission is in place since the girth of the case leaves little room. The speed sensor is on the right side. 2 wires, polarity doesn't matter. My instrument cluster is from Dakota Digital and uses three wires. Red, black and white. The man at DD said the red wire can be omitted so I'll solder the black and white to the Tremec white wires.

[Kern Dog]

The reverse light sensor is on the left and is also a 2 wire plug. As you know, the stock automatic is a 3 wire arrangement. The center terminal is ground, the outer terminals are positive but again, polarity isn't important. I'll solder to the center and one outer terminal and it should work.

[Kern Dog]

Since I have dealt with automatic transmissions in these Mopars almost exclusively, I am seeing some things for the first time in this project. Clutch linkage, clutch master cylinder, measuring for bellhousing runout and now, starter clearance.
It never occurred to me that the manual trans flywheel was larger than the automatic and that the starter would have to move out to fit. Today when bolting up the starter, I noticed that where I used to have a fair amount of clearance to the headers, now there were 2 tubes that were within approx 3/16". I knew that while the car would start and run without a rattle, the life of the starter would certainly be shortened with the heat that close.

[Kern Dog]

I took a Sharpie and marked where I needed to add some room. (Hammer)
Way back when I first installed these TTI 2" headers, the #3 and #5 tubes hit the steering box and required some mash work to clear. Now that I replaced the squished RH motor mount with a better one, while the engine now sits level.....it ended up closing the clearance gap I had so I needed to mash them a bit more.

[Kern Dog]

I plan to tape up the pipes so they don't get so scratched up going back in. Because of that, I'm letting them dry overnight.

I last had this engine out of the car in 2011 for a refresh. Rings, bearings and gaskets. I painted it then as well but some paint has flaked off. I decided to degrease and scuff a few places and touch up the paint.

[Kern Dog]

The speedometer speed sensor is on the right side of the Tremec so I had to reroute the wiring. I ran it over the pinch weld and to the right side in a way that will be out of the way and shouldn't move out of position.  I soldered to the Tremec supplied wires and shrink wrapped it all nicely. It was left long enough to allow me to connect it with the tail shaft pointing down. Clearance is tight when the trans is in place.