Technical FE Manual Bellhousings: What are the REAL differences between them?

And I want to thank all of you rooting around in your parts stashes to get this info! Much appreciated!!!

 

I am putting a T5 onto the back of a 300 inline. There is a lot of vague and confusing information out there for certain.
The input shaft on the T18 warner 4 speed that came in my F100 is 6 1/2" long if I recall correctly. The T5 input is 7 1/8".
I'm making my own adapter since.....A- I can, B - I already had the material on hand and C - it saves me a bunch o' money. It needed to be 5/8" thick, and the chunk o' 6061 I had is 3/4". In your original post, you mentioned using a TKX 5 speed? Those have two different input shaft lengths. GM or Ford. I would recommend to check the specs on whichever trans you want to use before nailing down your bellhousing choice. They are not the same as typical 4 speeds that have been mentioned

 

Bangingoldtin,
I have a C5TA-7505-B bell housing for my 390 and am needing a trans for that. Either a
3 or 4 speed top loader. You mentioned earlier you know where some top loaders are.
My bellhousing is the 6.800" depth.
Thanks, CP

 

I measured two pickup 3 speed top loaders with SB shafts today, and both had the 6.5" shaft length. I am also running one in my 53 Mainline behind a 302, and it worked fine. That one came out of a 73 F100

 

There is a site that I go to on Thursdays that has quite a few 3 speeds. Had my hands on about 5 today. Shipping to you would be a killer though. Nearly all are SB ones.

 

Thinking out of the box a little, there is quite a bit of meat on the bellhousings and if you need to shorten the truck bellhousing that 1/2 inch maybe a 1/4 inch could be machined from the mating surfaces of the truck bellhousing. It would be a very simple machining job on a larger lathe or mill and should be cheaper than the car bellhousing. Just a thought, I have never done it.








Bones

 

I have a complete setup out of a 65 pickup, never thought about using it behind an early FE.

 

Thanks for chiming in, even late... LOL. The one unresolved question is moving the trans back that 'extra' .350" enough to significantly reduce the engagement of the clutch hub to the trans splines? I'm of the opinion it isn't, but as noted, David Kee remarked that some weren't 'comfortable' with that. If Ford did as it appears and extended the bellhousing to simply reduce required transmission inventory on the pickups (allowing the same SBF-style input on all motors used), they were certainly 'comfortable' with it and given the abuse trucks can take I would assume I can have the same comfort...

To my knowledge, that 'short' FE-style input was used by Ford in the '50s on everything, from the flathead/sixes through the Y-block and FE. With the exception of the FE, all of those were gone by '65 (both the 223 six and Y-block were totally gone at the end of '64), and '65 was also the first year the FE was available in trucks so it looks like Ford took the opportunity to 'fix' this, at least on the trucks. Why this didn't happen on the car FE applications will remain a mystery....

 

And I suppose there's one more question that could be asked; did Ford make a later version of the truck bell, or was the C5 version the only one they used? I don't ever recall seeing one, but that doesn't mean one never existed...

 

With a bit of fiddling you may well be able to accommodate the longer input shaft with the regular depth bellhousing.

I used a long input shaft with the stock, short bellhousing by machining the pilot bushing so that it would seat deeper in the crankshaft, and this combined with the long length of the clutch splines allowed the setup to work.

Here's an image and some explanation from an article I wrote for the "Fairlaner" magazine some years ago:

[To accomodate the SROD’s longer]


Note that the longer (SROD) input shaft has longer splines, which are long enough so that the clutch can still have sufficient room to move.
I've put many satisfactory miles and a few years on this setup.

 

I haven`t been on this site for some time now, but I have a few thoughts on this issue. I am also considering replacing the current Toploader 4 speed in my 1959 Meteor Niagara 300 Tudor sedan, basically the same as a 59 Ford Custom 300, with a new TKX, but the long T5 length input shaft causes me some concern. My 59 has a FE 428 Cobra Jet engine, and a Toploader from a 289 66 Fairlane, and after hearing the "old wives tales" concerning the need to trim the tip of the small block transmissions input shaft to use a car bellhousing, OR use the deeper C5T PU bell, I actually mocked it al up and measured for myself. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was plenty of room for the pilot tip to go into the bore in the rear of the crank, about 1/2" deeper than the pilot tip required. I originally tried a C5T PU bellhousing, but the "clocking" of the clutch fork was over an inch lower than my factory clutch linkage was designed for. (My 59 had a 332FE and 2 speed FordOMatic, but I found clutch linkage from a 59 doner car). I ended up using a early style FE car bellhousing, with casting number CAK-6894-C, and a casting date of 0K4 (Oct.4 1960, so for an early built 61 Ford car). This bell has the deep tunnel for the early long shaft starter, and smaller flywheel, but I am using a McLeod 184 tooth flywheel with an 11" McLeod clutch, and the later style short starter. To use the later starter meant I needed to install the sheet metal plate between the engine and bellhousing, to locate the starter correctly. One problem with the pre 65 FE bellhousings, is that they have a smaller bore for the transmissions front bearing retainer to fit into. There are 3 options for this, find a 1964 (only) Toploader bearing retainer, which has the smaller OD, or, machine the OD of the later Toploader retainer to the earlier smaller OD, or lastly, do as I did, have the bore of the early bellhousing enlarged to the later retainer size. This early bell also worked perfectly with my OE Ford mechanical clutch linkage, as the fork is located higher up than the C5T PU bell. The early bell has the fork at roughly 9.00 O`clock, where C5T bell is closer to 8.0 O`clock. I have had this setup in my 59 for 1 1/2 years, and 3000 miles, including a few dragstrip passes, and it works fine. That said, my Toploader has the front case with both the early narrow mounting pattern, and the later wide pattern, so I am using the narrow pattern that the early bell has. However, my understanding is the Tremec TKX has only the wide pattern, as well as the TKX has a longer input, so I would need to either use a later style bell, plus a spacer plate, a $$$ deeper QuickTime bellhousing, or see if I can find an adapter/spacer combo that would bolt up to my narrow pattern bell, yet have threaded holes to allow the TKXs wide pattern to thread into the adapter. My Fairlane Toploader has both the Fairlane and Mustang shifter mounting position lugs drilled and tapped, in the Fairlane position, the Hurst shifter clears my factory bench seat, the Mustang position is about 3" further back, which would not work with the stock bench. According to the dimensions on the Tremec website, one of the 3 shifter locations is only 1/4" further back than my Toploaders shifter, measured from the front of the case, to the center of the shifter, but if a spacer/adapter is required to use the longer TKXs input shaft, the thickness of the spacer would move the shifter back by the same amount.

 

Where I think your confusion is coming from is Tremec only shows their 'generic' input shaft which is the same length as a T5. They also sell two Ford versions designed to fit OEM bells or aftermarket scattershields which are OEM length and shorter than the T5 input. The only difference AFAIK in these is the length of the pilot bearing shaft, with the FE version being .5" shorter. If using a C5 truck bell, simply use the longer non-FE version to insure full engagement in the pilot bearing. The Ford versions only fit '65-up bellhousings with the wide pattern.

You can get an adaptor to use a TKO/TKX with the pre-'65 narrow-pattern bell, Modern Driveline has one for $200. If you go this route, you then get a trans with the longer T5 input, the adaptor takes up the difference (roughly 1"). Besides moving the trans back, the other issue you'll have is the adaptor is designed/built to index to the smaller '49-64 bearing retainer hole, with yours machined larger it won't work. You may be able to have one machined for your set-up.
Ford Narrow Pattern Adapter SBF/BBF to Ford 3550/TKO with standard input shaft - Modern Driveline

 

What did you end up doing? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

If the trans bolt pattern for the large dia front bearing retainer is the same as the Ford unit I have taken the late large bearing retainer and turned down the O.D. to same as early small retainer and used 5/16 Allen Bolts instead of Hex head bolts and resolved the size difference.

 

Realize I am threading onto old post in an attempt to update information for my use. Have 65 Galaxie convertible with snooze-o-matic. Engine is FE 352 coming out for stout rebuild - have a 3 speed OD toploader coming that came out of a 65 Galaxie convertible. So far, so good. I commented from pic that even though it had been bolted up to a rebuilt sbf, it was original to I6 due to color (red); got donor car vin and confirmed this. My issue: Will I need to source a different bellhousing or will it bolt up to my FE? Additionally, cannot find information that confirms this 1965 tranny to have R11 OD unit (very strong) vs R10 (too weak for power). Waiting for pic of tag (shows in pic but not legible) to see if close ratio or wide ratio. Because I live in mtns - OD for interstate, close ratio for climbing so hoping it is the close ratio fearing wide ratio will be hard on the hill home - 2000 ft climb in 2.5 mi.

 

OK, there's a lot to unpack here. I'll start with the transmission. Ford used three different OD transmissions in the '50s, only two crossed over into the '60s. The first is the light-duty Ford/R10 OD. Long gone by '65, this was a side-loader design, identified by its 10-bolt square side cover. Next up is the medium-duty BW T86/R10 unit. This is the sole top-loader design, identified by its four-bolt top cover. Found behind sixes and low-HP V8s. Last, the heavy-duty BW T85/R11. These can occasionally be found with a R10 OD on them but those are very rare. These are a side-loader design using a nine-bolt side cover with a curved lower edge All three have a non-syncro first gear, meaning you have to stop to shift into low (or be very good at double-clutching/RPM matching, not recommended). All of these became very rare after '61. Through that year, Ford used the T85 with or without the R11 OD behind their HiPo offerings, when the T10 four speed became available in mid-'61 they pretty much disappeared. I'll note here that which OD you have will be cast into the OD/tailshaft housing on all transmissions, R10 or R11. Ford dropped these as an option for cars in '66, although you could still get one in trucks until '69 or '70 when they totally disappeared. One more fly in the ointment; the '50s-era motors all used a 6" length transmission input shaft, when Ford started introducing their new motor designs in the early '60s (the SBF, 240/300 six) they added 1/2" to this length, all in the pilot bearing shaft. There was one exception however...

FE bellhousings... There are basically three OEM versions available; the '58-64 car, the '65-70 car, and the '65-76 truck. The SBF/240/300 six bells won't fit. One other thing needs to be noted; there are variations in where the clutch throwout arm is 'clocked', i.e. where it sticks out of the bell. This can be between 8 and 9 o-clock which may require clutch linkage mods on some vehicles. Not an insurmountable issue, but you need to be aware of it. Details...

The '58-64 car. Ford didn't offer the FE in trucks until '65. These can still be found, but present some issues if trying to use a '65 or newer trans. These use the early 'narrow' trans pattern. Most '65-up OEM Ford trans can be redrilled to the narrow pattern if not already drilled with both, but not the T5/TKO/TKX. The hole for the input bearing cover is 4 11/16", smaller than the later trans. You can buy the smaller cover in most cases or turn yours down. If you get the matching flywheel, swap the ring gear from the OEM 153 tooth to the later 184 tooth, then you can use the better '65-up starter. Stay away from the earlier one, they have issues (and are expensive). If the lower tin cover is missing, you can use the '65-up cover (which is being repoed) but will have to redrill the mounting holes. The block plate tin between the bell and the block are all pretty much the same for all FE manual bells. There can be minor differences, but they don't matter. The throwout arm is also being repoed. Expect to pay between $150 and $350 depending on completeness. If the trans you're using has the longer 6.5" input, cut about 3/8" off the end so it won't bottom against the crankshaft.

The '65-70 car. These are the ones everyone wants, and prices reflect that. Expect to pay $800 or more for one of these. Nearly as cheap to buy a new Quicktime bell. With the shift away from manual transmissions, these are fairly rare. If you're using a '65-up trans, it's a bolt-in with one caveat; if using the longer input, you'll again have to remove 3/8" off the end of the shaft. This is the only post-64 motor/bell combo to retain the shorter 6" shaft. The hole for the input cover is enlarged to 4 13/16". Most cannot be redrilled for the early narrow pattern as there isn't sufficient 'meat' in the right places to do so.

Last, the '65-76 truck bell, part # C5TA (the T is for truck). By far the most commonly found one these days, prices are starting to go up but shopping around can turn these up for $250 or less. The last two I bought I got for $40 each. Nearly identical to the car bell except for one difference; it's .350" deeper than the car bell. Ford did this to allow using the longer 6.5" input which reduced the types of transmissions needed in inventory. This creates multiple issues when not used in a truck. First, it pulls the clutch splines out of the clutch hub by that amount. Ford had no issues with the trucks that I know of, and I know more than a few guys using them in performance use with no issues, so IMO you can forget this. Two, you can't use a FE car trans as the pilot shaft doesn't go into the bearing far enough. No problem with the longer shaft. Three, it does move the trans back that far so you may have minor issues with the trans mount and/or shift linkage. Four, if you ever decide to upgrade to a TKO/TKX with the long T5 style input, the commercially-available adaptors to an OEM bell won't work with this bell. There is a way around this, but you'll need a custom spacer pinned to the bell.

A few more comments. If the trans you have is a T86, be aware those don't suffer abuse well. If you beat on it, it will break. I broke a couple behind a 223 six, a 352 puts out a lot more power than that even dead stock. Don't speed-shift it, that will kill the syncros and eventually the OD. You might give some thought to finding a 3+1 Ford toploader OD (basically, a four speed with third gear converted to OD) instead. Stay far away from the aluminum-cased versions, and the truck versions can have some poor gear spreads. The car units are a bit rare, but they are out there. These can handle much more abuse than a T86 (but don't get carried away! LOL), their main flaw is they're hard on the cluster shaft bearings in OD, expect to rebuild whatever you find. And you'll need more rear gear. All of these have a .7 OD ratio, the typical 3.00/3.25 you'll find behind the auto trans will give a land-speed-attempt 2.1 or 2.27 in OD. A 3.7 or lower will be better.