Hello, I've been forced to figure out most of my car on my own. I have an Old Timer helping me with the build. But I think he gets pleasure watching me try and figure this stuff out, when all along he knows the answer. I'm getting close to starting to assemble my car. First time for me. I've asked some questions on here on which direction to take. My latest is transmissions. Its the topic that comes up here quite often. Do I run the T5 or the '39. I have a new '32 frame, '49 Mercury Flathead and a '36 banjo rearend with radius rods. How easy is it to bolt a '39 tranny to this late Merc flathead? If I go with a T5, I will need to get an adapter, clutch, etc etc. Not to mention I will need to do something in the rear to make it an open drive. Plus I like the strength of the torque tube. The Mercury motor has the bellhousing and flywheel. It came out of a running car. I decided I didnt want the stock tranny it came with. So, to make a long story short. I guess the question would be. Which way would be easier and cheaper to go? Maybe someone out there has done the '39 to Mercury conversion and they can give me some pointers. One of these days I'm going to write a book " how to build a hot rod for dummies"
your 49 Merc should have a mini bell housing similar to the light green bellhousing in this picture. It should be stamped steel. This one is a cast iron truck unit. Your 39 trans will bolt right up to it just like this one. Nothing to it.
Maybe that old timer is right... Part of me wants to call you a lazy dummy for not reading a book & learning something on your own instead of asking for the ansewer via this chat site/message board... but then another part of me wants to help you. 49-53 Mercury Flathead to a 39 Ford Top Load huh????? and you have the Mercury Bellhousing.... geez dude, today is your lucky day! I got news for ya there...the stock 49 Mercury bellhousing is a direct bolt up to that trans. Yep, that Mercury trans (1949) is the same basic trans as that top load job, it is just a side shift & most likely had an overdrive. All bolts up, no bullshit homie, so does the clutch assembly & flywheel, same throw out bearing, the whole thing just bolts together, it actually could NOT be any easier! Shit, you didn't even have to read about this in a book, or the HAMB, you could just try & put it together. So there you have it, I'm not gonna do the math to tell you which is cheaper, that you can figure out on your own. Love, Cheatercarl
T-5 to flathead usually requires some form of adapter depending on the bellhousing used ie big truck type or later 8BA car type. T-5 will require open drive. The 39 top shifter can use the original closed drive or open drive if the truck aft mount is used. Its up to you in the end. A little more work for open drive or the more traditional 3-speed with closed drive. A 32 frame is more adaptable than the older model A but I don't know if your building an AV8 or a 32. If it's an AV8, you need the Bishop/Tardel book.
EDIT: apparently, 49 mercs ARE different! Unless the '49 merc engines are different, there's one hitch that I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet. The late Ford (49-53) clutch disc won't fit the larger input shaft of the early trans. And don't bother trying to use the early disc with the late plate, the fingers on the late pressure plate are also longer and will interfere with the throwout bearing carrier. Ask me how I know... I had my 8ba flywheel redrilled to take an early 10" pressure plate and disc. Works great now!
T, '49-50 Mercs and the few '51's built with early trans use an early Ford splined disc and a pressure plate with spacing for the regular 78-throwaout also used in early Fords. Your pic is of a Long clutch, presumably '49 Ford type. Aside form having the fingers wrong for earlier Fords, it is an entirely different beast---the Mercs '49 up had Borg and Beck which were entirely different! The '49-50 type had their fingers right for early Ford, later Merc FH had same style PP but with late Ford finger spacing. The '49-50 Merc is a bonafide snap-click for a '39 trans!
More late Merc stuff: The flywheel for Borg&Beck, both '49-51 and '51-53 Merc, has 6 evenly spaced holes to distinguish it from the 6 holes grouped into 3 pairs on all of the various Long type flywheels, so any '49-53 Merc wheel is a starting point for this setup. I believe that the good Merc pressure plate is now getting hard to find (Please post a good source, if not), but within about the last year "Hot Rod Deluxe" printed an article detailing a traditional SBC to early Ford trans swap...they came up with a source for a modern pressure plate built with finger spacing for the early setup and provided ordering info for that and disc and throwout. Now, if someone who understands electricity would heist the good info and post it here, this would start looking like a seriously useful tech post!
Bruce, That article is in the May '09 HRD. It says to use a RAM 401 diaphram pp with their special drag race disc. The PP is quite readily available everywhere for alot of applications. I'm wondering why a guy can't get a PP locally and run it with the readily available 40s disc?? Instead of spending hundreds to get their setup from Summit. I'm having grief with my setup. I got an adapter, PP and disc from a buddy who took it out of a running '39 ford with a 350/ '39 trans setup. I didn't get the throwout assembly though. What I have is my throw out will not engage the fingers on the PP. Here you can see it at reast, meaning the clutch rod aint hooked up. Here it is hooked up to the clutch linkage, with a bit of freeplay. Here its getting engaged but before it pushes on the fingers you can see that the spring is about to be shredded and interferes with the PP. So I have the wrong throwout assembly. BUT it is a 32-48 car or 48-52 truck. And it is a 78 case 1939 trans. I'm stumped as to what throwout assembly I need. Every article I've read says to use the stock t-o assembly, well it don't work?? This is a bought off the shelf setup with the small 153 flywheel and nine inch clutch. I'm trying to put it into my '35 Phaeton with a 283. I also tried what I thought was a good 1949 merc car PP with a 40s disc and the fingers hit the throwout sleeve and locked the motor up? So I'm guessing its actually a chevy PP and not the Merc one, but don't have a Merc one to compare it to. I would rather run the Merc setup then the bought stuff cuz the bought stuff has a 1/2" deeper adaptor and pushes my motor closer or into the rad. If someone has one handy could they give me a measurement? Heres my PP we tried. I made some lil tape triangles cuz I aint smart enough to put cool red ones on it with the 'puter So from the tip of the triangle tape piece to one across from it the measurement is 1.75" give or take. This is with the clutch at rest on a warm chair So is it a Merc or a Chev?? Also does someone have a pic of their Merc PP bolted up to their mill? -Shiny
Is this what most of your guys setup looks like? Is this where your fingers sit? Rusty, if your reading this what did you use for a throwout housing/ collar? -Shiny
I've subscribed to this one and bookmarked it both as I'll most likely need the info in the next few months. Thanks for the info folks.
The pressure plate being shown has fingers much too close in for early Ford...might be '51-up Merc or might be something else entirely. I think I know where there's a '49 Merc PP in the basement, but I'll be out of town for several days for Memorial day. Early Ford based stuff is wide because of big splines and big trans collar on all early Ford/'49 Merc/Truck transmissions. I think the article said that the PP given was in effect a special, assembled with right fingers for early Merc type circle, and not a straight OEM plate. I don't know if there are any direct fits other than the Merc, but do know that at least very few plates would have fingers in a big eough pattern for early Ford...whatever is pictured above is entirely unworkable. Modern diaphragm/Belleville plates essentially interchange with B&B, but what would have suitable fingers other than a '49 Merc direct application?? There are lots of '49 Merc people on here...who has researched this??
29EHV8 I measured an old B&B clutch from a Mercury set up 49 to early 51 type. I used a hole gauge to check the diameter of the circle where the throw out would contact the fingers and it is very near 2.5". The hole diameter of the pressure plate frame is 4.875". The internal clearance circle of the fingers is near 2.375" as best as I can tell with a three finger set up. Definitely a fair amount larger than the PP you pictured. Bruce is right about them getting harder to find though. I grab them up when ever I can to keep my old Mercs going. Bruce, I have enough spares that I havn't had to research it out yet but am interested if anyone else has.
Thanks Bruce and Rotorwrench for those measurements they're great. I have the article from May '09 HRD in front of me. I've read it threw a few times and if you go onto Summits website and look up the RAM 401 PP they say to run and cross reference for applications on their site it says its good for literally hundreds of cars and makes. It doesn't speciflly say its for just the sbc/ early ford trans setup. So my thinking is that they want you to buy it, and also buy their special disc which is an early ford center made into a 10.5" disc. I thought since the 49-early 51 Merc PP is so hard to find I'd try running the same PP as what the article says to run, but get it locally for one of the applications listed on the Summit site and run my 10" ford disc. Yeah it won't be perfect but it should work. At this point I either gotta pony up and spend huge cake at summit and the post office and damn border or try to get it locally and see what happens. I know I won't be the first guy to run a smaller disc with a bigger PP, right Whats the worse that could happen? It might slip a little on hard launches! That'll save my axle keyways and my trans Of course if anyone has a Merc PP thats collecting dust and it needs a new home I won't let it rot away Or should I just re-drill my flywheel and run a 40s ford PP and be done with? -Shiny
Heres the link to the RAM 401 that the HRD article says to run. It doesn't say anywhere that its special, other then it says "drag race" http://www.summitracing.com/parts/RAM-401/Application/?prefilter=1 Lemme know what you guys think? -Shiny
Finally got my dilemma sorted out. And I didn't have to find a hens tooth Merc PP either Got my grinder and welder out and were good to go. -Shiny
advance auto parts has the 49-51 diaphragm pp and small shaft clutch with clip on throw out bearing for 104.bucks. much easier adaptation to t.o. bearing than the original 3 prong.
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