i'm kind of pimped with my hearse being a 61 motor and having a dynaflow, i really wanted to put a 400 trans in it, but being an x frame car with a torque tube its not easy and with the crank being a 61 crank no 400 flywheel is availble for it, and i'll need to drill a starter hole as well. anyhow i was wondering what all i would need to put in a performance 4 speed transmission. and how hard parts would be to find, and what to look for. anyhow thanks for any info you can pass on to me.
Factory 4-speed parts for a nailhead are all made of un-obtanium. Northwest speed equpiment has recently come up with an aftermarket flywheel housing, but it is for custom applications (has a clutch release fork in it instead of the rotating shaft that the factory ones had). You could use that housing, but you would have to design and fabricate all of your clutch linkage.
Unless I am drastically mistaken, its not a torque tube, its a 2 section drive shaft with a carrier bearing assembly in the center of it. If it is a torque tube, find a 63-65 Riviera center section or 63-64 fullsized axle and it will swap in and allow you to run a 2 piece driveshaft. As for the clutch, I'd go hydrallic with a univeral throwout bearing on the nose of something modern and just fab up the hydrallic clutch master cylinder. I'm sure you could modify the NW Speed bellhousing for the lines to pass though.
I agree. You got some good info here. We also do make a flexplate for the dynaflow crank to use a SP400
