Hey Guys this is my first thread so bare with me. After much research on the HAMB and a bottle of aspirin I made an adapter plate that bolts up to the stock flathead bellhousing. Here are some pictures. This is the 3d Model I surfaced at work. it has the stock flathead tranny bolt pattern which is counterbored into the plate. The T5 pattern is threaded into the plate. The tranny's small .25" lip thats around the input shaft inserts into the large counterbore. The large diameter boss then inserts into the ford bell housing. here's another view Here is a picture of the T5 with the lip that inserts into the plate here is me cutting it at work on my CNC here is some pictures off the plate bolted to the bellhousing. If I may add I redrilled and tapped the stock 7/16 bolt holes on the bellhousing to recieve 1/2-13 NC bolts. This was only for ease of construction since we only have 1/2 socket head cap screws at work. I also opened up the clearance holes on the T5 to accept a 1/2 bolt instead of the stock metric bolts. and another Here is a picture with everything bolted up. I did have to do some triming for the starter. I didnt take any pictures though. Here is a picture from the front. Now because the stock ford throwout bearing wont fit on the input shaft of the T5 and the chevy throwout bearing just would touch the three fingers of the stock pressure plate of the ford. So I made a new one using a bushing at work and then I had my friend Dave weld it up withe TIG. He is awesome thanks buddy!! I also put some stops just so that once it did spin in the fork it would hit those stops and no longer spin I hope this helps you guys with some visual references! I used a S10 9.25" clutch. I also had a new drive shaft made using the correct u-joints just so I have no troubles down the road. Cost me 300 but I think it was worth it. Car shifts and drives great. BRENT
Thanks, I would do alot of searching on the hamb but there was nothing with any pictures so I thought it may help to see what was going on. I also put new bearing in the fly wheel to accet the t5 nose from the input shaft. I cant remember the part number though but you can look it up on here. And Im sure Im forgetting stuff since it was back in May when I did the install.
Seriously! Great fab work. I imagine long down the road when someone pulls that t/o bearing out they're going to wonder what the deal is.
Cool tech. I made a 3/4" wood pattern for my Stude to GM 4spd last night. Now to get a chunk of aluminum and get my dad to work the Bridgeport. Should be fun!
I sort of did the same thing with some MDF board I had laying around just to get the bolt pattern down. But I just didnt trust it so I actually set-up the T5 and the stock 3-speed up on the boring mill (vertical cnc machine) and took my dial indicator and using the input shaft as my reference zero (X0Y0 centre). I then went to each bolt hole location and indicated the hole and recorded each xy dimension and that is what I used to create the bolt pattern. If you want to do the number I can give them to you, provided your father has a xyz read out or you can lay it out.
Thats a sweet '50 you've got. I'll be sending you a PM when I get to the T5 stage on mine! You need to put together a package of the adaptor, the throw out bearing, and anything else you've used and sell 'em.
hey brent, nice work but not to change the subject, got any good profile shots of your car? i checked your albums but didn't see any. just trying to see the side trim and skirts. looks good. thanks, jerseymike
Yeah Im kind of slow with this stuff. Here is another Sorry, I only have this side picture with the car aired up
I thought I would add a little more to this post about the throw out bearing. As I said earlier I had to make my own because there really wasn't anything out there, this became more of an issue then the adapter plate if you could believe it or not. So I will start here with this picture of the stock 3 speed throw-out bearing and the carrier on the left and on the right is the stock T5 throw-out bearing and carrier. Here is a side shot of the 2 throw-out bearings. The Ford carrier uses a spring steel clip that connect to the clutch fork this stops the carrier from spinning on the input shaft. The interesting thing about the stock 3 speed Ford TB is that it can be take apart. The large bearing just taps right off the carrier. I was able to order this bearing. If you also would notice the size difference of the bearings the Ford bearing measures overall 3.125" diameter. This is the face that actually contacts the fingers of the pressure plate this measures 2.85" and the internal diameter that would ride on the ford 3 speed input shaft is 1.44" ID. The Chevy T5 bearing is 2.75" overall diameter with a surface contact of only 2.625" that is what makes contact on the s10 pressure plate. The internal diameter that rides on the t5 input shaft is 1.38" So after much head scratching I found a bushing that we use for our molds at work it is nominal sizes and should be easy to sourse this bushing comes from D.M.E a mold component supplier. It measures 1.625" Outside Diameter and the inside diameter measured 1.25" now that 1.25" id was an issue so I had to open that up with my machine to 1.38. Now im not sure but I imagine you could find a bushing that would be 1.625 od and 1.375 id I never looked in to it The next thing I did was found some washers at the tractor supply store. These washers had a ID of 1.625" and a od of 2.375" this pretty well matched the stock ford carrier. I then used some 1/4 steel NPT plugs as a spacer they are thickness of .400" and are close to the same size as the stock ford clutch fork dowels pins that move the throw-out bearing in and out along the input shaft. Here is picture I took of this set-up. Please not that these washers are INCORRECT size wise but to give you the sense of what I did. I basically just copied the ford carrier. The last job was welding it up and for that I had my buddy Dave TIG weld the washers in place. I also had him weld the NPT plugs, these act like stops when it first touchs the fingers on the pressure plate the intire unit wants to spin so these just counter that. and here is the picture of it in the fork I hope this helps clarify the throw-out bearing portion of the post. Brent
Thats great info, it seems people just gloss over the throwout bearing when describing the T5 install, you make it look easy. Now I wish I had a mill. What have you other guys done, is it just as good to buy the speedway bushing for 30 clams and run the original style flathead throwout? I am faced with this right now, I am running the Dwight Bond adapter plate.
Thank you, I was thinking of using just the stock T5 throw-out bearing but the diameter of the bearing face just barely made contact with the "fingers" on the pressure plate, after all these are what actually create the leverage needed to engage/dis-engage the clutch disk. I wonder if these "finger" could be modified instead of going through the trouble of making a new throw-out bearing and carrier.
Just a quick add on to this post, I was PM'd a couple of times asking about the thickness of the aluminum plate that I used, it is 1.250" the plate is 1.00" and the raised boss that inserts into the bell housing is .250" Hope this helps. I would also like to add there has been no issues with this conversion so far. I have had to adjust the clutch linkage at the pedal, im sure thats normal. Brent
I was asked if I could post the dimensions of the adapter plate. But before I do I just want to be clear that I physically picked up and indicated each transmissions bolt pattern and made my numbers off of my true locations. Does this mean yours will be the same? I'm not sure. The T5 numbers seem to be more nominal and suggest it was built in a time where they were able to employ modern machining practices probably using cartesian coordinates (X and Y locations). The Ford tranny however seems to be not so nominal as I can only guess it was manufactured in a not so precise manner so you may want to check your numbers.
Hope this helps, I'm still learning the new HAMB so my pic are not to big but I think you can get the idea of what I did.
Excellent post. I made a very similar adapter plate but am using the Ford Mustang WC T-5 trans with the 50 Mercury bell housing that has the cross shaft fork style throwout bearing assembly. I'm not a machinist but did have enough mechanical drawing skills to make my own design. I also used a one inch thick aluminum plate for the project. Had it machined and it came out great. Just wondered what you did to hook up your clutch linkage. That was one of the harder parts of the upgrade for me. I run an eleven inch clutch and pressure plate on mine. Thanks for your post.
Mac VP I used the stock S-10 clutch (9.5"), no need to go with the bigger Astro van clutch. As for the clutch linkage it was the hardest part of the set-up and what I did was to custom make my own throw-out bearing that still used the stock Ford clutch fork. I did take some pictures of this and I hope that gives you a better understanding of how I approached that issue.
This car hauls ass with this setup guys. It blew my mind when Brent took me for a ride last summer. Made my vert feel like a boat anchor.
Its just to bad the motor died...If you thought it went quick with that flatty you should see it scoot with that SBC and T5 now....That's is in itself a entirely new thread we should start! Anyways I hope someone can use this information to build there own adapter and make the change..It was and is still my personally favorite alteration I did to my box. Made it a entirely better car!
I like the setup and was wondering how the clutch arm crossover bracket pivot would attach on the tranny side.
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