Inliners International Forums General Discussion Truck Talk Bell housing search

I am shamelessly cross posting this:
I am looking for what may be a "unicorn" bell housing. It would be from a truck between '63 and '72 that had a 153 tooth flywheel and an SM465 tranny. Did this exist? Anyone know a casting number? Basically a 153 tooth Bellhousing with the 5-1/8" locator bore.

I think not. The transmission should bolt up to almost any Chevy bell housing. Is it rear motor mounts you need? Front motor mounts and a good tranny mount should work fine. Do you need the small fly wheel?

It's the tranny locator bore that is different. Nearly all of the SBC and I-6 Chevy bellhousings have either a 4-1/4" or 4-11/16" center bore. The SM465 needs a 5-1/8" center bore. I have found a site that says that casting number 3858403 has "a larger bore" , but it doesn't give a measurement, or say larger than what exactly.
Anyone know the answer to this? I hate to buy one and pay shipping without knowing what the bore size is up front. This would have been in a truck between '63 and '72 with the SM465 tranny and a 153 tooth flywheel. The starter would bolt to the flywheel, not the block.

Have you talked to NOVAK?? They have TONS of information on adapting different transmission and bell housing combinations!! 435-753-2513 get with their technical dept. and explain what you're doing. They specialize in Jeep stuff!!

I'm not sure about the SM465 but the front bearing retainer/locater on a lot of transmissions are interchangeable. I've done it on Borg Warners and Saginaws. I have also turned them down and had bell housings bored out. Once I made an aluminum spacer.
If the retainer has the room it would be my choice to turn it down because it can be done in a lathe quickly with centering being much less of an issue. Boring the bell housing requires more setup time and keeping the center is more of a problem, for me anyway. At any rate the housing with the 4 11/16 bore is less cutting.

Novak's advice is to bore the bellhousing a little, and turn down the retainer a little, as neither one has the meat to make the entire adjustment. I was hoping to avoid that for three reasons: it seems like an opportunity to lose the ability to get everything indexed concentrically in the end. It would mean two trips to a competent machine shop 120 miles away plus the cost of the machining. And, it is not something I can have done in advance to taking my jeep off the road, unless I come up with another bellhousing and bearing retainer. This will be the route I take if the unicorn I seek cannot be found.
I really enjoy driving this jeep and I am hoping to have everything in place to pull the tub and refurb it underneath, re-set the motor and steering box a little forward and replace the T-90 with the SM465 all in one winter season working only on the weekends. To accomplish that I need to have all of the ancillary work completed before I start tearing it down.

Using the big flywheel there would be no machine work necessary, all off the shelf parts. You could use your clutch. Probably cheaper than the machine work and surely faster.

I'm using the big flywheel small clutch for my 153 build in a '26 Chevy roadster because the vintage after market adapter mating it to a T-86 OD from a Studebaker also uses a stock Powerglide adapter with the starter mount for a 168 tooth wheel. I've been told the four cylinder will like the extra weight in normal driving. It may be even better for a Jeep giving it a bit more torque retained in the heavier flywheel. Small light fly wheels are for quick throttle response on the way to high rpm.

If you're forced to do, or have the the machine work done, you can check the concentricity with a dial indicator and it can be adjusted with offset dowel pins!! The stick shift drag car guys, (a bunch of the automatic guys too) have done this for over forty years to get the minimum or zero misalignment to reduce drag and wear in their clutch/converter assembly!!

Beater, what Bellhousing are you using? Does the starter mount to it? I have an aluminum truck Bellhousing out of an '84 that came on one of the SM465s I've accumulated, but it doesn't have the starter mounting holes. I don't know if my 153 block has them either.

I am using a new 168 tooth flywheel that uses the 10" (or what ever it is) clutch. I got it from Jegs after a lot of searching for a used one to find that most were used up and cracked. The housing is a combination of the stock Power Glide adapter and an aluminum aftermarket that adapts a Studebaker T86 Borg Warner 3 speed OD. Yes the starter mounts to the Power Glide adapter.

Because pictures are so hard to post here I'm attaching a link to my epic build thread on the HAMB. The pictures are on page 2. There are some of the adapters and further down the trans and T90 Jeep top plate.

LINK


The '84 you have may be the one you need to use the small flywheel. I think the later blocks had two sets of holes so either size FW could be used. There are also starters drilled for both and after market starter ends that locate the starter. So if you can bolt up the trans and remove the starter form that mix I think locating the starter on the block will work. For mine it got a bit messier.

Both of my 153 blocks have provision for either block mounted starter. I have a big block, (staggered pattern) starter on the one in my rat rod.

Right now I'm leaning towards 3925505 as it has the Bellhousing mounted starter and the 5-1/8" center hole. I'm just a little nervous about how far outboard the starter sits as it may interfere with my front driveshaft. Tomorrow at lunch I'll try and get ahold of someone at Novak. There may be a good reason why they recommend turning down the SM465 bearing retainer a tad and opening up the bellhousing center to allow it in. It could be that the ideal Bellhousing for this is playing cards somewhere with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

I'd like to get into that game! There are the small starters that may give you more room. One of the starter bolt holes on the block I'm using was striped and drilled all the way through so I was looking to mount from the housing anyway. I briefly thought of aligning the starter to use a 153 tooth wheel, very briefly. .

I was looking at 3925505 housings. Would you have to use the starter mount or could you still use the block mount and the small FW?

I'm going to pull the transmission in a week or so so I can check what Bellhousing is in there. I think the weight of the flywheel makes more difference than the size to me, and I'm after as heavy as I can find. I am assuming that all of the standard chevy bellhousings are the same depth from face of engine mounting surface to face of tranny mounting surface? I can't really afford any extra length as the SM465 plus adaptor is already two inches longer than the T90 with adaptor that's in it now.

I found this in my build thread. I don't know if you read this far.

"I was able to weigh the flywheels this morning.
12 3/4" 153 tooth that came with the 153 weighs 20 lbs. #366861N
14" 168 tooth that will work with the adapter set up weighs 28 lbs. #3729004
Both use the same 10 1/2" clutch."

So here are the numbers of the Chevy II 153 FW and V8 passenger car 168 tooth wheel. The 168 is eight pound heavier. I don't know about the 153 Jeep used. If you want more weight you can always go with the 11" or 12" clutch on a truck 168 FW.

And yes as far as my experience all of these housings are the same depth.

Thanks. I have found 168 tooth flywheels as heavy as 30 lbs. I need to look at the relationship of the bell housing to the firewall and see if I can fit the 3925505 bell housing in there with a 30 lb 168 tooth flywheel, (and check front driveshaft clearance). If it all would fit, that seems like the easiest way to go. The way I've come to think about this it seems like the bigger and heavier the flywheel is, the better off I think I'd be with the little I-4. The smaller the clutch is, the faster that truck tranny should sync into a shift.
I got my Merc 120 head back yesterday, cleaned, magnifluxed and surfaced. I painted it last night. The merc valve kit should be here next week. I lucked into a Clifford intake manifold on Ebay for $125, and I have a fresh rebuilt Rochester 2G still in the box. I also have a junk merc head to use as the stand for an exhaust header. I think fabbing the header will be the biggest challenge. It seems like 120 hp and 4500 RPM should be achievable with this setup. I'm hoping that will get me 55-60 mph up and down hills so I can more or less keep up with traffic. It will probably be next winter before I take it off the road for the power upgrade.

Beater, are the Bellhousings on your 153s 7:00 fork, or 9:00 fork?

None of my 153s came with bell housings but the adapter setup I'm using is 9:00 and all of the old Chevy truck ones I have are too.

The port spacing on the exhaust is the same as a small block. Small block headers won't bolt up because the intake is in the way but a heads kit might save a lot of work. My plan is to modify a Fenton Black Widow cast header but it will take some work.

I think with these engines gearing and tire size will be very important. I am afraid that I may have chosen the wrong cam for mine. I was thinking Hot Rod more than driver. At low rpm a lot of the mods made for high rpm output work against you. We have had quite a discussion here about cam and head work for a 292 truck engine I am planning.and I have decided to leave the bolt bosses in place and stay away from big valves and lumps. At low rpm velocity is more important than flow. Compression is important too. These heads are just 2/3 of a six head. I think these could be torquey little beasts if done with bottom end in mind rather than top end and you'd still be good up to 4500 rpm where you rarely take the jeep anyway.

I have a 3/8" header flange cut for the 153 I found on Ebay. My plan was to start with plain steel "hugger style" SBC shorty headers and work from there. I've seen some with the center two tubes on the inside at the collector which should help in clearing the Clifford intake. The 4500 RPM comes from the 20 minute drive on blacktop from my place to town where I need to be able to keep up with the traffic, or at least make the speed limit. My differentials are 5.38, but I have a 20% overdrive. It will do over 60 mph on the flat as it is now, but it can't pull the hills in OD, dropping into the 40mph range. These old CJ's have the aerodynamics of a cinder block, and 60 is about as fast as I want to try in a 60" x 80" wheelbase.

I bought my header flange and the tubing and collector from Hell's Gate Hot Rods!! All the tubing and bends were perfect and you can position your tubes any way you need to.

The owner is extremely helpful and prices are great!! Ask for Andy!! He's the owner and he's great at figuring out what you'll need!

208-305-6469

What OD are you using? Is it Borg Warner? What size tires are you running? It is amazing how much power big tires can rob although with 5.38s you should be able to turn about anything. I have a complete Iron Duke 151 that was pulled from a YJ, '80 I think. The guy was trying to run some huge tires with the stock gears. I doubt if he was really happy with the V8 he put in it.

I understand the short wheel base thing evenly '70 K5 Blazer is squirrelly. A guy I knew here put a 390 Ford in his CJ. The day he got it running he brought it to the parts store where I was working and had sold him parts for it. He told me how squirrelly it was and that someone with less experience would kill themselves in it. A few beers and a week later he crashed it so hard the engine came out and scattered pieces for almost 100 yards. His passenger was killed and he was turned into a vegetable. I think your approach is wise. It would be nice to keep up with traffic when needed but the real work will be mostly done just fine by the 153. If you ever run across a deal on a 181......you'll be all set up for it.

My OD is a Warn, and as the transfer case is a dana 18 there isn't any advantage to the BW as the transfer case is always turning in any event, and the BW adds length. Pretty much all of the early jeep OD's are the Warn or similar. My tires are 6.00x 16's although they may grow to 7.00 x 16s if the engine mods give me the grunt to turn them. I have no desire for big wheel and tires on the old jeep.
181 mercruiser engines are plentiful. The problem is that no one made non-marine manifolds for them as the are 8 port heads, rather than the 6 port heads of the 2.5 mercs and 153 Chevys. I'm going to try my hand at building headers for the 153. If that goes well I might play around with a 181 at some point down the line. Of course I'd need another jeep to put it in

It has been a while since I looked at a lot of options for my 153 build. There are one or two threads here where we discussed them. Some info is not quite right because we were not as knowledgeable as we are now. Jalopy45 had a dragster at the time powered by 2 of them inline and sparked by one V8 distributer.

There are at least three 181 heads. There are two 8 port heads and one is better than the other. The 6 port is the same as one of the 153 heads I think. At least your 153 head will fit a 181 so what ever you do to it will not be in vain if you go to a 181 later. The extra 28 ci, partly from the increased stroke, would be good for your Jeep. My 153 has a 181 crank.

Almost all American ODs were BW either R10 or R11. Most are about 30%. If geared right that reduces rpm and thus engine wear by almost 1/3. They are great fun to play with. If I could fit it in I would, Some day I'd like the convert one to a stand alone. I agree with your tire and wheel ideas.

Replying to this slightly old thread, just in case you didn't find a solution, I think this adapter plate would work for you.

http://vintagemetalworks.blogspot.com/p/s10-t-5-to-gm-5-18-diameter-bore-bell.html

On some transmissions all it takes is to change the bearing retainer to the proper size. Some have a different bolt pattern.