Cortina MK3 with V8 Dodge 318

[TIB3300]

dodge dakota pilot bearing



ford mustang pilot bearing



both designed to sit in the flange of the crank rather than down the hole in the end of the crank where a spigot bush would go

provided your T5 came out of a mustang.....or ford this will work

the centre bearing in the ford part fits the end of you input shaft
but the outer casing fits nothing on you car

the dodge dakota bearing doesn't fit the end of the input shaft but the case it is pressed into fits into the centre of the flange on your crank shaft

however the outer size of the actual roller bearing cases is the same so you push them out of the holders and swap them
so you can make a hybrid with the dodge outside casing and the mustang roller.

this obviously only works for a mustang t5, i guess a similar process might be possible for a GM t5 but they do have a different sized tip on the input shaft....

if you find the end of the shaft doesn't reach the bearing when its all in position you would need a deeper or longer version version of the roller bearing.. that might help...so you take you mustang roller bearing to a bearings place and say give me a longer one of these....
press that into the dodge dakota outer with the extra few mm sticking out towards the input shaft and hopefully that extra few mm makes all the difference
Dave

That's great yes its a Ford mustang T5.

I will have to see how far away the input shaft is from the crank, but it wont be for a while yet, but from what i remember the input shaft doesn't even go into the crank at all, I think is shy by 10mm?

[Dave999]

ford t5s came in a load of different types
but most had short input shafts

some from 93-97 had a longer one and all from 2000-2004 did

and so did the ford racing box with very similar ratios as the sierra cosworth

an input shaft swap to longer is possible but is dependent on pitch and number of teeth, and the type of retainer bearing used.

the long ones often go for $80-100..

you could ask these guys for a long one of the correct teeth number for you box if you box still has its tag.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1994-1995-94-9 ... xyj4hTIwDM

otherwise you'd have to take off the input shaft and that risks dropping roller bearings into the case

i have a 2003 t5 with the long shaft and using 15 mm adapter and a mopar bell, the end of the shaft sits in the flange area in the middle of the end of the crank i.e not far enough to go into a spigot bush but far enough to engage with one of the roller bearings previously mentioned

[TIB3300]

Dave do you have an aluminum bellhousing there? and are there any automatic bellhousings that remove ?

[mygasser]

hi mate,
the gearbox in the pic looks like a truck box. be aware it may have a 'crawler' first gear (very low ratio) with a big jump to second. that and it's size wouldn't be good for a car. maybe adapt another box to your bellhousing etc, shouldn't be hard.
neil.

Thank you for the input and info, but you may now know i want to use the T5 gearbox

That's what I was going to use, but I just bought a Toyota supra box as that's what came up.
Neil.

[Dave999]

Dave do you have an aluminum bellhousing there? and are there any automatic bellhousings that remove ?

i have a BW35 bellhousing for a hemi 6... different pattern at the block and its just a shroud it has no back to it, just a flange and bolt holes from where it bolted onto the front of the BW35
you'd have to-

1) accomodate a different starter position that is aussie specific in it radial distance from the centre line and its position around the block flange
2) build a back of whatever depth you need for the bell to fill the hole and accommodate centering and the Input bearing retainer of the t5
3) deal with the fact that 2 bolts and 2 dowels won't be in the right place for a v8 and there is little meat in the ally for movement
4) you'd need a hydraulic clutch and some holes drilled for the pipes

i'm in athens today but back at the weekend so can take a photo yours for £30 if you wanna play
if you don't use it i'll have it back.

the bell i'm using is an aussie cast iron bell designed for a 146 tooth flywheel that takes a 9.5 or 10 inch clutch and uses a unique aussie starter its about 7.5 inch deep

the aussies used a small slant 6 sized bell with a flywheel between small block v8 and slant 6 it was easier to do that than retool the floor pressing. hence the flywheel is a little too big for the bell and you need a starter with a 25mm pinion gear not 35.

limited to 10 inch clutch with the flywheel re drilled.

aussie bell would be cheap but the shipping won't
they were used on the ford falcon and cortina in australia on the single rail
see this below and not Leyland Chrylser ford applications

afer that the fords move to a t4 like box then a t5 but both were aussie made and subtly different


Dave

[Dave999]

cheap bell housing from US

expensive postage

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mopar-66-67- ... SwvcFZ1O5G

if i purchased that i'd speak to ron fenton at STS imports and have it moved in his next container

[TIB3300]

Cheers Dave

I have a car bellhousing coming, It shold make all the differance. The input shaft should be in the back of the crank flange by abut 22/24 mm

[autofetish]

Great build amazing engineering

Keep the pictures coming love it !!!!

[TIB3300]

Still tinkering in the background
Since my last update I have bought another bell-housing and flywheel thanks to Blue'. As you may have seen the spigot shaft was not in to the crank, this was because the bell-housing I was using was from a truck and deeper then the car bell-housing. With the new Dart bell-housing am now in the crank by 14mm, But have had to make new adapter plate as the holes in the dart bell-housing are different. I am currently working at both ends of the car engine to box and rear axle. On the rear axle news, I bought the Mustang for the rear axle, but after reading people's revues the 7.5 rear may not be up to the job.
So have bought this


A 1999 ford explorer as these things come with a 8.8 LSD as standard happy days, and all for £400 on the drive, with the added bonus of having LPG conversation. I will update soon with more pictures

[Dave999]

Nice

you need something like 18 -25 mm in the adaptor

easy way is to measure the bell from front to rear face

mopar is usually 7.5 inch i think

then you have somewhere between 18 and 25 mm to play with for the dapator between bell and box

mock it up and check that the end of the spline on the input shaft ends just before the friction face of the flywheel when mounted up

the bell depth + whatever is left is you adapter thickness

i got in touch with modern driveline in the US he's a mustang guy who does bellhousing to box adapters he was willing to share dimensions of his ford and chevy stuff so that i could choose one with the holes well away from where i needed new ones to mount my odd box and bell combo

$150 and £25 at a machine shop here...job done

next check that the clutch plate has free play back and forth on the spline T5s had long and short input bearing retainer (IBR)
and they came in aluminium steel (and steel for pocket bearing ford racing T5)
you need a standard steel one of appropriate length.....
a swap is not hard but neither is it easy as the IBR supplies the preload through the main input shaft right to the back of the box.
its all set with shims. you can buy packs of peal-able shim material in a range of thicknesses.
and its easy to lose shim and roller bearings into the box internals when you take off the IBR and input shaft, its all sloppy if you don't get this right at this end.

ally IBR is ok but most are very old and scored and worn the release bearing can get hung up causing clutch drag

i'm assuming you have a long Input shaft t5 you might not

if you have the short input shaft box the adapter situation might need to be 5-8 mm steel rather than fat alloy to achieve spline in the right place
ideally you would not have the clutch centre overhanging the taper on the input shaft when clutch is engaged...full spline coverage in the clutch centre hub is best


Dave

[TIB3300]

Thanks for another in depth reply Dave
Am not sure I understand eveything you have said, but will undate with pictures soon and you can see what am up to

[Dave999]

aim for something like this

bell mounted to block with flywheel on

block on its side

move the trans into the back of the bell until the end of the input shaft sits into the hub of the flywheel to the point where the spline end is level with the fiction face.
measure the gap between the back of the bell and the front of the box.....

that gives you your wiggle room on adapter thickness

by bell had offset lower left (in picture) mounting hole right on the side of the adapter
so i drilled and tapped two more holes

belt n braces and all that. would have been fine with just 3 bolts but...you know. toss up between an adapter that could easily be centred into the bell housing hole or one that would be a pig but had more space for new holes

centreing was key for me so i had to cater for the 4 offset mounting hole in other ways

Paul coffy at modern driveline was very helpful has a 67 falcon loves a ford, knows nout about chryslers but affable helpful and his adapters are $100 to 200

way cheaper than the $700 or so necessary to extract similar out of castlemaine rod shop or dellow conversions/automotive in oz



Dave

[TIB3300]

Thanks Dave,

This is what ive have made to mate them, I used the centre hole to line everything up.
Just need to drill one more hole

[TIB3300]

On the rear axle, I found out that the mustangs 7.5 rear axle may not be up to the job of running a V8.

Ford Explorer, as these things have an 8.8 LSD rear axle beefy enough to take the V8

I need to narrow the axle so I can get some nice deep dish wheels on the car, I was going to have this done by someone .But decided to give it a go myself :unsure:

After fighting with the 70kg rear axle on my own to get it out, cleaned it up and cut off all the original mountings.

[TIB3300]

The thing with the explorer rear axle is these axles are actually narrower then the cortina by 10mm,

But I want to narrowed it by another 3in, I was going to buy some Moser shafts made to measure at a cost of £460 + vat and carrage.
But after some research and noticing that one half shaft is 3in shorter then the other. It made sense just to buy another short shaft £80

So after mesuring both the long shaft and he short shaft, I figure I can cut the casing down by 77.598 mm