Hey everyone, I have a 67 Dodge D100 pick up with a 225 slant 6 and a 727 3 spd auto trans. I also have a 56 Desoto 330 Hemi that I a want to transplant in the rig. Problem, I have never done an engine swap before and am a bit intimidated about what to do and was hoping to get some advice from the group and maybe find someone that has done a similiar transplant in the truck. Some of my questions: What to do about motor mounts? How to figure out geometry and placement of the motor? Trans cross member? Will the front end handle the added weight? Going to use hot heads trans adapter and it appears my 225 flywheel and bell housing has the same bolt pattern ( 10 hole ) as the 318 so hotheads ***umes that will work. Any and all help, comments, suggestions is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance Bob g Orange County CA
Accept for being possible construed as off topic because of the year of your truck, I think if you plan to use the existing trans, you would suspend the engine and hook it to the trans. With the trans still hooked to the cross member, measure how much room you have between the engine and radiator. If it is too close for a fan, you will have to move the trans cross member back till you have room. As far as fabbing some engine mounts, it is usually easiest to use mounts that bolt to the engine and then weld the other half to the frame. You want the carb mounting surface on the intake to be as level as possible, not off by more than 2 or 3 degrees. You will want an imaginary line of the crank and trans shaft to be parallel to the frame rails, and then shorten the drive shaft accordingly.. Hence the trying it in the original position. As far as the springs holding the weight?? You will see when you set the engine in if it sags the front end, you will have to research what springs were used in the truck for a V-8, probably even a Big block set of springs. If they are coil springs, you can order springs by the truck make and tell them your engine and trans set up, and they can custom make you springs that will be suitable for your set up.
Not OT, the '67 D100 has the same design as a '61, which is before the '64 cut off. Sweptline Dodge's had the same body style from '61 to '71, with only minor grill changes. As for the swap- Slant 6's and 318's do not use the same bellhousing, so I don't believe that adapter will work with a /6 transmission. /6 bellhousings and auto's pretty much only work on /6 engines. In the better news department, the mounting ears used on the 330 DeSoto are pretty much the same as the ears used on all the later mopar engines. Schumacher sells engine mount conversion kits for '66 up trucks for B/RB engines. With a conversion kit and a set of 440 engine mounts I believe you'd be pretty close, the engines are roughly the same size. I would guess that the width of the block at the mounts will be a little different, but only by an inch or so. The transmission mount may have to move slightly because of the minor differences in the length of the DeSoto compared to the later V8's, but it would be pretty minor. My guess would be that the mount would have to move, but it would be a small enough change the the crossmember could stay in the same place (ie, move the mount forward or back slightly on the crossmember). All in all, it should actually be a pretty straightforward swap. No changes to the engine mounts on the frame, make some minor mods to an engine mount conversion kit, and it should be pretty close to bolt in. As far as the weight goes, the DeSoto isn't all that much heavier than a B/RB engine, and lots of those sweptlines run around with 440's in them. You might want to upgrade the springs in the front, but I'd bet there's springs out there for the big block equipped trucks. And if you really want to make it easy, I'll trade you a 440 for that 330 DeSoto, it'll bolt right in.
From the questions you asked, your knowledge and expertice with such a swap is very limited. Unless you have the funds to have some do the swap or finish the job when you are stalled, don't atempt it.
#3; Not OT, the '67 D100 has the same design as a '61, which is before the '64 cut off. Sweptline Dodge's had the same body style from '61 to '71, with only minor grill changes. In 67' or 8' (can't remember) I saw several fleet dodges sit in a fenced lot behind a regional dealership in Nashville. They ***led and registered the year model according to the year they were put in service and not the year they were manufactured. Tenn dept of trans and general services used a bunch of them. Not so many years ago, for registration purposes, pick-ups used to be considered not as p***enger vehicles, but as farm or construction equipment. Excuse my ignorance at the present........ but I can't recall; Does the Desoto have side mounts or were they front saddle mounted? If they have lugs for side mounts, wouldn't this be much like putting a early Chrysler in? Please post photo's, I'd like to see this job performed. Tom S. in Tn.
Only the low deck Dodges didn't have ears. 319 Poly mounts with lower extensions or Ch***is Engineering uppers & fab your own lowers.I replaced a /6 & stick in my '60 Plym car with a 331/727. On the car I was able to mod the actual ****** mount & kept the crossmember unmolested as far as location was concerned.
I'll say that many years ago we did quite a few of these truck swaps. They are as close to a bolt-in as any swap can get. Truly, the only fab work is for the throttle pressure governor (kick-down) linkage. Get the entire linkage when you get the trans, or look at a service manual to see what the pieces look like. The linkage can come from just about any Mopar v-8...car, truck, van, whatever... You can modify any of the intake manifold brackets to fit the DeSoto. It will be very handy to have a 318-360 powered something available for a reference as you go along. In lieu of that find one and take about a thousand photos and read the manual. The transmission will die without this linkage properly adjusted. As Bryan noted the /6 trans will not work. You will need a similar smallblock 727, then with a trans adapter you're good to go. You might re-evaulate the info you were given. With the correct 727 in place, on the stock mounts, then the drive shaft works, and the shift linkage works. With the engine and trans hooked together, and the trans on the mount, you will find that the 318 mounts (for the 67 truck) are incredibly close to bolting up as is. IIRC, you will be adjusting the fore-aft position with a handful of washers. DO NOT use a common through bolt to capture both top ears. You will break them. If you find any difference in the overall width then you can redrill the crossmember. The v-8 mount will not align with the /6 mounting holes but some frames will be drilled for both. I do not recall any fan clearance issues although we did change bottom radiator outlet on some. On some of the 70's and 80's swaps we changed power brake boosters but, again, virtual bolt-in. Obviously, new exhaust is required. Yeah, it's been something like 20 years since we did one but I don't think I have missed anything major. .
Moparmonkey I really appreciate the advice! I guess I will have to source a bellhousing and run from there. I already have a 440 motor in my 68 GTX oops, call it a 63 hehe. Cheers
Charlie B66, Experience is definately non existent in a straight 6 hemi swap but then again, I never did nothing till i did something. Best way to get it right is to get it wrong first. Cheers means beers
Thanks for the details George. How does that 60 Plymouth run? Will post photos of the process as it goes.
C'mon dude. He asked perfectly legitimate questions. And he said he'd never done an engine swap. Everyone has to start somewhere. And this is a nice, straightforward swap to make, its practically a bolt in with the right parts. Since you didn't offer any advice other than not to start, I'll ***ume you've never done this swap either. At some point, you didn't have the foggiest idea what you were doing either. No problem! Yeah, you'll want a small block bell housing and a set of 318 truck mounts like Gary said. With those parts you should be pretty close already. As far as the 440 goes, hey, it was worth a try right?
Runs good, fit in nicely also. On my ****** I used the truck drop loop type mount & on the crossover I removed the flat that held the OEM coil spring ****** mount & welded on verticle plates that go on either side of the loop mount.
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