Technical Help with Ford T10

Me and my Dad are out of ideas and in need of some advice. We're trying to install a built '66 289 with a 6-bolt bell into his 1964 Mercury Comet. The Comet was originally a 5-bolt 260, 3-speed. We were looking to swap in a '64 T10 at the same time but both trannies have the small bolt pattern to the bellhousing. After searching through junkyards and talking to everyone we could find the conclusion was we needed a Lakewood bellhousing #15200. Very expensive but he bought one. It almost fits. The stock 157T flywheel and starter, the stock clutch fork and it bolts to the trans but the index rings won't fit the small bearing retainer on the T10 or the stock 3-speed. Does anyone know if a bearing retainer from a newer top loader or other transmission will fit? Do we really need the retainer to fit snug in the bellhousing? Any help would be greatly appreciated. The cars been in the family since 1990 and it's sad seeing its parts laying all over the shop.

 

Did you contact Lakewood? Maybe they have an answer.

 

You do need the trans indexed to a few thousandths. It's been decades since I dealt with your problem. I had a t 10 and a Ford top loader that I swapped back and forth when dealing with the different bolt patterns. I had a 64 hipo 289 that was 5 bolt and a 66 Mustang 6 bolt engine that I swapped around.

 

Not sure if this will help or not? When I was putting a 66 top loader 4 speed behind my flathead the index hole in the steel bell housing was too small by about an 1/8 inch so I had a local machine shop open it up so the bearing retainer would fit. You don't note if your using a steel or aluminum bell housing but I would bet if its too loose you could get the register hole welded up a bit to get the hole smaller and then have it machined to fit your bearing retainer. Shouldn't be too expensive or tough to do for a machine shop. If the hole is too small they can open it up a bit. Conversely you can also have the bearing retainer turned down if needed.

 

It's a steel ****tershield from Lakewood. Apparently Holley owns them now but they're hard to get anyone on the phone. It came from Summit but they say they don't offer a smaller index ring. The old T10 bearing retainer is way smaller than the new bellhousing hole. I guess it could be welded up then made to fit the T10 but for nearly $600 it should work out of the box. With the new bellhousing plus machine work we could just buy a newer style toploader.

 

Add for 15200 states it come with 3 index adapters. At least that's the wording used.

 

Welding on a new bell housing ( or old) could present new problems, now I said could. Take the bearing retainer off the transmission and the bellhousing to a machine shop and have a ring turned to make them compatible. Have the machine shop machine a “ lip “ on the retainer and a mirror image of it on the ring so it will stay put. Your out maybe a $100 and problem solved.




Bones

 

I bought a t-85 overdrive transmission (what a t-10 was designed from) that was bolted to a small block 6 bolt bellhousing. Someone made an adapter to register the transmission to the bellhousing. Just an aluminum ring that was a press fit to the bearing retainer and just a tight fit to the bellhousing bore. They also drilled and tapped the bellhousing to match the transmission bolt pattern. A lot cheaper than buying a ****ter shield. Send that ****er back to Summit.

 

A newer style bearing retainer will fit the older T10. You do need a good snug fit as that's what indexes the trans to the crank center; don't depend on the mounting bolts to do this. Re-drilling the bellhousing isn't possible on just any Ford bell, some have enough meat to do that but most don't. Ford also built a limited number of dual-pattern bells as 'service replacements' (allowing 6-bolt motors to replace 5-bolts without changing the trans) but those are rare.

The other thing you need to check is the pilot bearing shaft length on the end on the trans input shaft. The SBF uses a 1.125" shaft, the FE is only .75". Using the FE style with the standard SBF bronze pilot bushing will result in bushing failure pretty quickly as it doesn't engage the bushing deeply enough. Steel pilot bearings are available to fix this.

 

Also some Ford t-10’s came with both bolt patterns on the main case.

 

Again, those were generally service replacements although a few leaked into regular production...

 

The add does say 3 index rings. We only got 2 but the paperwork shows the 3rd as being very small for a Mopar. Something like 4.350 and the best we can measure the T10 is about 4.65. The 2 rings we got are in the 4.8s and 4.9s. The input shaft length is the same as the stock 3-speed. It's from a '64 Falcon and uses the same odd transmission mount and the shifter clears the bench seat. He has a 3-speed O/D external shift from a '78 Granada we thought about but he doesn't have any of the shifting parts and the shifter would mount too far back. I did take the bearing retainer off the O/D and I think it would bolt up but the shaft part is a lot bigger around. The retainer from the T10 won't even fit over the input shaft on the O/D trans. There's supposed to be a Toploader spe******t fairly close by so I'm gonna call and see if maybe a '65 up bearing retainer will fit a '64.

 

IIRC, the '49-64 bearing retainer is 4.625" OD and the '65-up is 4.875" (1/4" larger).

 

An index ring came with the bellhousing that would fit the newer style. So '65 up has the same 4-bolt spacing on the retainer for the '64? Would that include the 3.03 3-speeds, T-18 and T-19 truck transmissions also? We're planning a junkyard trip Saturday and there's loads of pickups there.

 

I don't think the Ford toploader and T10 retainers will swap, but you may have luck with some of the truck trans.