Inliners International Forums General Discussion Drive Train Adapting a 1955 open drivetrain

Getting back in gear, for lack of a better analogy...as I keep saying...I'm kinda talking out loud as I'm going alone but would welcome any advice on this one small piece of the puzzle, the Input shaft.

First, the back history on the T5 if I haven't mentioned this. A guy with a Ford truck bought this to put into his 60s F-100. This is exactly what he wanted, a WC T5 with a Ford Bolt Pattern on it to mate up to his Ford bell housing. Not being easy to find, he was going through the salvage yards and found this which he thought was a '93 S10. It is a '95, but they're the same T5, and they use electric speedos. However, the gears inside match up to Ford gearing and to get the input shaft for a Ford, it has a different spline, same issue I am solving. However, this has the Chevy gearing in it that I want, so even though I need to get a clutch fab'd for me with a 26 spline in my diam, I can solve that piece. This is the only way to get a WC T5 in an S10 front mount shifter T5 needed for bench seats. (whew, that was a mouth full in itself)

He bought another Ford T5 and sold this to me for $350. Now, the cheapest thing to do would have been to use the T5 as-is, because it turns out it was rebuild already as I saw a grinder mod that PaulC recommends on the shifter shaft. But I never want to have to go into this T5 again, so though I would just rebuild the entire thing and replace all the wearable parts.

I don't believe the rebuild kit includes any parts for the input shaft, and older vintage input shafts were 11 spline, and the '95 T5 I have has a 26 spline which is pretty much what a modern date input shaft may use, I'm not clear, but there was an intermediate spline count after 11 but less than 26.

Since I don't have any parts, I as leaning to just getting a new input shaft which was about $50 last I checked, but need to figure that out. There is some type of rubber seal in the bottom, and a bearing at minimum that I will need, and I can probably get the old bearing off, I don't know about the seal in the bottom of the cover, which is really crap'd up. Probably won't be pretty if I wire wheel and clean it up, but nobody is gonna be able to see inside the bell housing. I may need to cut about 3/4" off, that I'm not sure of yet, but I don't have a problem cutting a new one.

Theory on why it look like it does. I believe water got into the bell housing and/or when the S10 was sitting in the salvage yard from the shifter opening. I think it happened before since it was rebuilt, but I think whoever rebuilt it cheaped out and used the original input shaft to save some coin. Then I believe the S10 was in another accident and went to salvage at that point.

I am going to look for that seal and bearing to see if I can refurb the one I have, or find another one. Since my vehicles are different years than the specific model, I can't find which one has the manual T5 with overdrive, so having a difficult time finding the correct spline...I need a 26 spline input shaft assembly for a 1995 Chevrolet S10, and don't any offers for what would be a manual.