235 motor into a 50 fleetline

ok, i have a question. today i tryed to put a 235 motor(1958) into a 50 fleetline(had a 216). the bellhousing and original trans dont match up. what are my options. do i put a differnet trans and rearend in it or do i have to pull eveything back out and find a 216 bellhousing. if the option is to put a different rear and and trans, please tell me opions that will fit.
thank you
ccarnut

 

216 bellhousing or a trans from a 235. No need to change the rear end.

 

Use your 50 bellhousing, flywheel and starter. It will all bolt up. You'll have to shorten the water pump too, or move your radiator ahead.

 

Yup like others said, use your original bellhousing.

 

ok, well here is the deal. i have the 235 flywheel and clucth and short water pump for arleady on. is it possible to just get the 216 bellhousing with the 235 other parts or since i have the 235 flywheel and clutch on there am i screwed and have to get the 235 trans. damn, i knew i should have kept the junk motor.

 

I don't think you will need to change the clutch and flywheel, the problem is the '58 bellhousing uses the "standard" GM bolt pattern for manual transmissions. It's the same bolt pattern the trucks used, you have the bellhousing you'd want to use for doing a T-5 swap if you ever wanted to. You need either a 216 bellhousing or a 54 or earlier car bellhousing (trucks use the standard pattern)

 

The later (55 and later) flywheel might be different, than the earlier one. What starter are going to use?

 

I plan on using the starter form the 58 (guess i better check to see if it will work ). I wonder if the easy way would be to find a 235 58 trans and be done or I have also thought about changing the torque tube and putting a regular rearend and t-5 trans in the car. The biggest issue would be cost, im on a fixed budget. Like everyone else is these day.(wife) lol

 

If you use the pre-1955 parts, it is a bolt in. If you use the later parts, I think that you will be making rear transmission mounts too.

 

I guess i will find the bellhousing from a 216 and bold that on.
thank you for all the help
ccarnut

 

The 58 trans would not be a torque tube trans, so you'd be doing an open drive conversion using that and really no gain over what you have.

 

Ok, looks like the best and easiest way would be to locate a 216 bellhousing. I will be calling the salvage yard the my old block went to in the morning.
thank you for the help
ccarnut

 

You'll be happy you did. It can be done on the cheap. You HAVE to use a matching starter, flywheel. 54-older or 55-newer. There are different tooth counts for "6volt" or "12volt" era parts, and they can not be swapped. They don't care if it is actually a 6 or 12 volt system, but the tooth count does.

For the time being, you need to drill out your front motor mount since the 50 chevy doesn't use side motor mounts. you have to use a 54-older care bellhousing to work with that 3 speed, but you could use a truck transmission to go from early torque tube to later bellhousing. It would be a waste of time, but it can be done.

you should not have s****ped the 216 until you were done. you need alot of reference points for this swap. Have you been to inliners.org?

 

For some reason I go about everything the long or harder way. lol.
Well I have a newer trans from a 55 chevy or newer and a option for a 9" ford rearend or a s10 4x4 rearend. Any ideas
Motor is in and the trans will be stubbed in tonight or this weekend. Been told I will have to do some cutting on the trans cross member with this trans. Working on cleaning up the intake, exaust, carb for now.
BTW- I look at inlines some times but not as much as a should be.
thank for all of your help.

 

Hola C-Nut
Here's a link to Patricks with great info on the 216/235 swap. They also sell parts. Click below
http://www.patricksantiquecars.com/articles.html

 

Yep, use your original bellhousing, mine is done that way and had no problems.

 

i would use the 235 bellhousing (58) and the 4x4 s10 rearend. all you need then is a s10 5 speed. should still be cheap. driving the car will be more enjoyable plus save gas.

 

Becasue of the clutch fork angle used on '49-54 cars, it is best to use the '49-54 car bellhousing regardless of wether or not you plan to go with the original driveline or upgrade to an open driveline.

With stock driveline, you reuse everything behind the motor including the flywheel. You can use that '58 flywheel and starter, but you would need to convert the car to 12 volts then. If you reuse the original 6 volt starter and flywheel, you could leave the car 6 volt or upgrade to 12 volts as a 6 volt starter can run on 12 volts. A 12 volt starter can't run on 6 volts.

If going with open driveline, buy an adapter plate to allow you to use a newer trans with the wider bolt pattern on your '49-54 bellhousing. Way better option in the long run than trying to cobble up some clutch linkage because of the fork angle change that happens when you try to use a newer bellhousing.

The '58 engine will need a couple holes drilled in the front timing plate in order to reuse the '50 motor mounts. You will also want to reuse the mounts at the sides of the bellhousing from the '50. The water pump issure is best handled by buying an adapter plate which will allow you to reuse the early style water pump. If you get a pump from a '54, you can use the smaller fan belt like you '58 engine would have used. Otherwise, some people go with a shortened water pump which does work, but you may get some cooling issues on a hot day stuck in traffic. Your call.

 

i used the truck bellhousing without a adapter plate. no clutch fork issues.

 

if you try to reuse the stock clutch parts, they will go together, but the geometry is bad and will induce a twisting motion on the fork. Also, you will not get as much travel because of the angle that the "skeleton key" part of the linkage is in, it turns the front to back motion into up and down motion, so you need to put the pedal nearly to the floor to shift. What I suggested is the best way to do it.

 

I made the clutch pull rod have a "Z" to it, worked pretty good for me.

 

The lesson here: never throw anything away until you're done and know for sure you don't need it.

 

I make and sell a special piece of linkage that fixes the problem as well, but the adapter plate with the '49-54 bellhousing is still a better option based on my experiences. The plate thickness also solves the issue of the longer input shaft found on most T5's.