49-51 Ford truck tranny behind flathead

[cuzncletus]

Anybody got any experience with one of these? I'm building a ratrod bucket and scored.....eat your hearts out.... a freshly built 53 for free! Now my neighbor is putting a smallblock/auto in his truck and his trans, which worked fine, is free. It could go well in my free frame. You get the picture. My glass Willys sits neglected while I'm absorbed in this project. Questions: How do these work? Is there any aftermarket shifter for available? (We ran one of these 35 years ago in a truck before there was the term "rat rod"; no fenders, roof cut off, cut down bed, no front brakes. We simply put two flat pieces of metal on the shifter splines and shifted 1st and reverse, then put it in neutral and shifted 2 to 3. Downshift, put the 2 to 3 lever in neutral and grab 1/reverse again. Kinda like a Flintstone Lenco.) Any help is always appreciated.

Good judgement usually comes from experience, which usually comes from bad judgement.

[fordnutz]

This is the intro page where you tell us a little about yourself. You want to bring this up in the regular forum where someone will see it. By the way, welcome. Pat.

[4-port Riley]

You need the 49-51 top shifter for this trans, it has a different rear shift fork, it is thinner than the 39-48 fork. If you are careful you could perhaps machine or grind the fork to fit the low-reverse slider. Pre 39 transes had a different syncro and the front fork is wrong too.