Hey Guys, I have been searching the HAMB for the last 2 hours and couldn't find anything. My question is, what does it take to drop a Model B engine & trans into a stock Model A frame? Any help is appreciate.
There is no shaft for the A pedals and the wishbone mount is different. An old timer just told me the A blocks were stronger - more meat on the deck. B blocks had cracking problems in the deck area.
There are two ways that are fairly well do***ented...this is not particularly easy, because you lose the mounts for the pedals, the front radius rods, the engine mounts, and the effective crossmember role of the A bellhousing. I think you can do a semi-bolt in using float-a-motor B mounts and the adaptors for pedals and radius rods from AC&R. This is a SHAKY looking solution to my eyes, leaving a lot of critical parts on spindly adaptor mounts, especially the radius rod mount which is now crudely attached to an engine on floating mounts in a frame with a crucial support removed... Right way IMHO is to do it the way an A-V8 is traditionally built, MUCH harder but resulting in an improved car rather than a handicapped one... Buy the A-V8 books, acquire the two vintage HRM's describing the art, and go to it. If you work from the book, some dimensions will change slightly...bolting the running gear to the B stuff, using A front mount and B trans to torque tube, will tell you where everything goes...then you'll need a custom or truck or '32 crossmember placed to suit, mounts for some V8 pedals, and either a trick belly band for the radius rod or a changeover to a longer V8 rod to the center crossmember. Really a whole car rebuild rather than an engine swap... easy cop out would be B engine and A trans...no trans improvement but stock parts left fully functional.
I'm using the AC&R kit in a custom 2" X 4" frame with hairpin radius rods and Float-A-Motor mounts without any problems. The shakey kit is the one that adapts the T-5 to a Model A engine. Extremely high quality ****.
Thank you very much for your repleys. I'll get my Buddy on the computer and we'll work through your the description Bruce As far as I know, my Buddy also has the A trans the car came with. But I don't know in what shape it is, though. I'll keep you informed on the progress.
So it you decide to use the Model A transmission, you will also have to use the Model A bellhousing, flywheel housing and modify the Model B pan. I think you would be better off using the Model B parts and put later gears in the B transmission.
That's the crux of the matter there...but a proper B swap is a whole car build needing crossmember, pedals, and radius rod arrangements. I think the kits that attach the radius rod to a piece of angle iron bolted to the B trans are terrifying...
Doing the swap with A trans requires several mods to the B, but all much easier stuff. A whole-hog build using A-V8 style swap with B motor would be the best but a great deal more work. Even the B ge****t is vastly more modern than the A trans.
Enbloc on here has/had an A coupe with a B block. Not sure what trans he was using though. May be worth dropping him a PM.
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