Trying to install a 250 Chevy with a powerglide tranny in to My 49 Chevy pick-up, But the original Trans cross member is in the way. Should I remove it or just notch it?
If it was me, I would fab a crossmember that could be removed. If you ever need to pull the trans it is alot easier to do without pulling the engine. Chassis engenieering makes a bolt in x member. Here's a link: http://www.chassisengineeringinc.com/page11.html
I have already purchased the aftermarket crossmeber, but my question is would it be wise to remove the O.E trans member to allow the engine to go back further or should I just notch it?
The issue with removing it completely is that it lets the weight of the cab twist the tops of the frame rails outward by pushing down on the ends of the cab mount brackets on the frame. That is why you see a lot of AD GM trucks at car shows that look bent at the cowl and the front end sheet metal doesn't line up. This happened to my own truck when I swapped the stick trans for a turbo 400 years ago and after about 3 years the bottom of the cab was sitting flat on the top of the frame rails because the frame twisted. I'm with Tugmaster in that I would either trim the original crossmember down to clear and plate it on top or remove it and build a replacement that bolted in under the bellhousing area to keep the frame square. I haven't looked into putting extra cab mount spacers between the frame rail it's self and the bottom of the cab cross rail to help support the cab at the front but that is a possible and simple fix that would be easy to do and it should keep the rails from twisting.
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