Twenty years ago I had 57 Chevy pickup with a 350 engine and 3.36 rear. It came with a T10, but I wanted better fuel economy, so put in a T5. Too much shifting (wrong gears) so I went with an MY6. I loved that transmission. I will soon buy a 54 pickup with original drive train, but MY6 units are very scarce. I have a T170 originally planned for my model A, but I think it would perform well in the Chev. I have never done a Ford to Chevy transmission swap. What is a good Youtube video or HAMB tech article to guide me?
First step is how close is if you put the T 170 next to another 65 or later Ford 3 or car 4 speed does the bolt pattern match up, does the bearing retainer OD where it fits in the bellhousing match and does the input shaft length match? There are a lot of Chevy Muncie pattern bellhousing to 49/early 64 Ford transmisson adapters but I am not finding an adapter for later Ford manual transmissons. I had to go looking to see what an MY6 trans was and it is a chevy version of a New Process A883. Rare as rocking horse poop according to guys on a GM square body forum that I had never seen before. This takes me way back to when guys were using Ford 4 speeds in Chevys in the 70's but this is what I think you need to study Adapting Ford-Style Transmissions to GM Engines | Novak Conversions
I'm thinking that T-5 transmissions have longer input shafts than regular Ford transmissons just like S-10 T 5 do. According to the article on it on the Novak site I posted in post 2 you shouldn't need and adapter and just have to do some machine work. Novak doesn't have anything on the T 170 as a lot of sources don't consider it to be a strong/robust transmisison and more of a light duty get gas mileage in 4th gear transmission.
Do some research .... The T170 RTS transmission has a "Wide" toploader bolt pattern and has a longer input length. The Chevy V6 T5 switched to Ford pattern T5's in the mid 90's [V8's were T56] Find a 4.3 V6 Astro van bellhousing and measure that. [1995 + vintage] 4.3 V6's have the same bellhousing pattern as a SBC and the T5 had a wide Ford Toploader bolt pattern [and Ford length input] All the Aussie V6 Commodores down our way had Ford pattern T5's The bellhousing in the above photos appears to be a 5 bolt bell from a late 73-87 chevy truck [I ***ume the truck bellhousing is deeper]
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