/////////if any of you knew of a fairly common four speed that would bolt to the 259 in my '62 Lark////////// The only common 4 speed that will bolt to your bell housing is the late 62-64 Studebaker transmission, the early 4 speed takes a matching housings. You'll at least need the trans, shifter, driveshaft speedo gear, and some new clutch linkage. --------------------------------------------------- //////Concerning the T-10 tranny... Will any T-10 4Speed bolt up to a Stude? ///////// Nope, none will, other than the two versions of the Studebaker 4 speed. Be sure and get the special bell housing if you get the early version. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Here's my understanding of Stude 4 speeds (and someone plz correct this if I'm wrong). The early Stude T-10 4 speeds ( '60-61?) used a Chevy bolt pattern. However, a Chevy T-10 won't bolt up due to differences in the pilot shaft between the Chevy T-10 and the Stude T-10. The later Stude T-10 ('62-64?) used a Stude bolt pattern. I don't believe this bolt pattern was shared with any other manufacturer. Of course you must use the Chevy bolt pattern Stude bell housing with the early Stude T-10 and the Stude pattern Stude bell housing with the late Stude T-10. Borg Warner made T-10's for Stude, several GM divisions, Ford, AMC and others. There were bolt pattern and pilot shaft differences in all of these. Only 2 specific T-10's will work in a Stude and you must have the correct bellhousing to make it work. -------------------------------------------------------------------- I wonder why they made a special bell to fit the Chevy bolt pattern in 61-62, then tooled up another special bell to fit the Ford bolt pattern in 62-64. Probably not big tooling changes, but still seems like a waste of engineering with no benefit. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Maybe because in 61 they had no idea how many four speeds they'd sell, or BW didn't have time to tool a new case and it was cheaper to cast a bell housing. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Dunno why the switch to the Ford pattern, but I can say, having serviced both in the past, that the Chevy pattern T-10 is easier to R&R, the mounting bolts are more accessible. A couple of different gear ratio sets were offered for the Ford pattern tranny's, probably also on the Chevy pattern units (I don't recall for sure now, but if anyone is curious about the Chevy pattern ratios the info is in the shop manual in the specification section in the front of the manual). -------------------------------------------------------------------- The Muncie and the Chevy housing are both wrong for your application. You'll need the following: Borg warner T-10 4 speed bell housing to match the early or late T-10 flywheel, clutch disk, pressure plate, throw out bearing, pressure plate bolts stick shift starter motor steering column sleeve ( minus the shift lever hole) stick shift flywheel bolts and oil pan gasket( needed to change bolts) 4 speed shifter, fiberglass shift lever housings and carpet clutch pedal and compleat linkage. rear motor mounts Backup light switch -------------------------------------------------------------------- I think adapting a Chevy T-10 would be easier than adapting a Muncie but I thought a Muncie was what he was talking about. Just for the sake of answering the question, it could be done. You'd need a rare and expensive 61 style 4 speed stylehousing to match the Chevy pattern on the Muncie, use a Chevy disk, machine theinput shaft and build a custom driveshaft. I still challenge anyone to do it for less than the cost of buying a Studebaker T-10 even with the free Muncie. If anyone is interested I have a lead on a 289 engine with the complete 4 speed setup-bellhousing/trans/flywheel for $400 OBO. in Ohio. If you sold the used 289 for $200 you'd be good to go for a small investment. -------------------------------------------------------------------- ------Automatic to 4 speed - Engine in car-------------------------- You can elect to remove the pan and rear main cap to change to the longer bolts; however, there is an easier solution to this I think, and that is when you get the automatic, converter, and flex plate off, take a cut off wheel on your grinder (or hacksaw) and cut the heads off the crank bolts on the BLOCK side. This will let you pull the threaded side of the bolts out the rear and the heads will fall off when cut. Then tap the crank for the next size larger bolts and use right length bolts for the flywheel. This saves from taking the pan and rear main cap off and reassembling them. ====== That's a great tip especially if the engine is in the car making dropping the pan a pain. I have yet another way of doing it. When you take the flywheel to themachine shop to have it resurfaced, have them bore a recess around the bolt holesdeep enough to use the short bolts and wide enough to get a socket on the nut. It still leaves plenty of meat on the flywheel with the nuts getting a full bite on the automatic bolts without any excess bolt sticking through.. I've done it twice and it works well and should cost less than a 1/2 hour machine shop labor. If the engine is out of the car dropping the pan to replace the seal, bolts and pan gasket and for a quick bearing check is still the best option. ======= This next part, I forget the diminsions but you can figure them out, and that is to make a pilot bearing that extends out of the Stude crank enough to let the Chevie input shaft stick into. I remember having a machine shop make one out of brass with the diminsions I gave them. Seems like it about a half inch or so outside the Stude crank with the Stude size small end that fit into the Stude crank. The part that was outside the crank was about two inches in diameter with the Chevie size hole in the center for the trans snout. I hope I'm saying this clear enough that you understand what it is. If this sounds like you want to try it, but not clear on what I have said, send me your address and I will send you a rough drawing of what I was trying to relay. ============ C'mon now, it's a different era. It used to be that all automatics were super heavy, horsepower hog, slush-boxes that needed extensive work almost every time you ran them hard. THEY WERE ALL JUNK!!! The ONLY way to get half way decent ratios, or reasonable reliability, or faster runs was to use a 4 speed. Hell, even a THREE speed stick was faster than an automatic! Four speeds were plentiful and reasonable. Then into the late 70s and specially the 80s, 4 speeds strong enouh for V8s were getting scarce and high priced. Automatics were finally getting reliable, getting better ratios, a whole lot lighter, and even could have SPEED PARTS installed! Buying a 4 speed today will often get you a pretty junky patched-up tranny. 5 speeds are not very strong if you hav much torque at all. Today with transkits, transbrakes, manual shift valvebodies, the auomatic dragstrip times are usually just as fast as the stickshift cars (it didn't used to be that way!) an automatic is a more attractive choice. ******************************************** SUMMARY-- 1950s, 1960s and part 1970s-- It used to be that a 4 speed was the ONLY way to get a strong or a fast tranny. Also reasonable cost. Automatics were very heavy, slow troublesome JUNK. 1980s 1990s -- Automatics are plentiful, vastly improved, lighter, stronger and much faster. 5 speeds are WEAK. (Don't argue, the Mustang and Camaro trannys have a LOWER torque rating than Grandma's stock two barrel de-tuned 289 {280 T5 vs 300-plus 2bbl Std, better not drive hard! Dare not increase power!}), Strong 4 speeds today are high priced, hard to find , and the ones you do find are very worn and untrustworthy. If you want to stay ahead of the BrandX's you don't have much choice.. Turbos prefer automatics to push against for a LOT more power. It is more complicated to get a turbo engine to act right without sneezing and bogging with 4 or 5 times as many rapid throttle open-close-open-close actions of a stick. The power flow with a stick is bang-on bang-off .... The steady power flow of an automatic is REQUIRED if you don't want to start an R&D research shop. The steady powerflow of an automatic is far less likely to knock you sideways at the track than a solid hit from a bang-shifted stickshift. And besides, Mike Scherers, Ted Harbits, and now Bo Burt's, wheels in the air launches are still impressive to watch even with the automatics. I would LOVE to return to the "leave rubber in three gears" fun driving, but today that would cost a big bundle and you wouldn't be any faster than the new automatics. Maybe more fun, but not faster unless you have a normally aspirated short-on-torque small motor. The 70's are long gone, tho it IS fun to visit. David LeVesque -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- you can put in just about ANY traditional (that means "older") Chevy 4speed on your Stude bellhousing. T-10, Super T-10, Saginaw, Muncie. I have done several including one I drove back and forth beween Illinois and Florida regularly. St Louis to Chattanooga, to Miami, to Charleston SC, back to IIlinois. My well travelled route with my favorite Studes. The Chevy trans is a reasonable fit IF you can accomodate a few differences. The trans mounting "arms" will fall outside of the Stude bellhousing trans-mounting surface. For the bolts that were off the bellhousing I welded on some iron pieces to bolt the trans to and drilled the places where the bolt holes met the bellhousing. Since the Chevy input shaft is cut a little shorter than Stude and uses a much smaller pilot bushing, some people have made replacement bushings for the crank that would stick out quite a bit to meet the shorter Chevy shaft. I preferred to use a bushing (and later a bearing) that was 15mm I.D.(I think I remember it right) and pressed it into the I.D. of the flywheel. That put it in the right place for the shorter Chev shaft and was much sturdier than a crank bushing that stuck out. I used a Chevy disc inside a Chevy or Stude pressure plate and that was it! I think I had to sleeve the Stude throwout bearing because the Chev aluminum front bearing-and-seal-retainer was slightly smaller diam and I didn't want the bearing to slop around. The Stude clutch linkage is VERY flimsy and weak. If you run a very soft clutch in a stock automobile, you need to weld all the pressed-on levers to the clutch linkage shafts or they will slip at the worst times. If you run a stiff clutch (I used to run a 3200 lb zoom because as a young kid I used to get a kick out of being able to bark the tires at 50-60mph when I passed someone)(remember everyone had crummy bias-ply tires back then) If you use a heavy clutch to match a heavy driving style like I did, the entire clutch linkage will have to beefed up with stronger parts and braces. After I saw a friends Mustang throw a clutch through the hood, cut the headers, drop the trans on the ground, and leave the starter dangling on the cable, I decided that I needed a safety shield to keep from losing my legs one day. I found that using a Lakewood Scattershield made the Chevy trans swao easier, tho it complicated the clutch linkage a bit. I used scattershileds in my daily drivers for about 15 more years before finally switching over to modern automatics about 10 years ago. If you aren't worried about not having a scattershiled, then ask Ted about his clutch explosion. I think his clutch bent up his hood, peeled back the floor, and took out the windshield. There's nothing more fun than a tough trans and a manual shift, but I guess I got tired of it when auto trannys got better and manual 4-seeds got "scarcer". Now the auto trannies have much better ratios and the trannys have gotten tougher. There is another T-10 trans that should fit better than the Chev, but it may be almost as scarce as Stude. There was a Super T-10 I used for another project. It had the Ford-style mounting bolts like Stude- easier fit than the Chev bolt pattern. And the input shaft had the large 3/4 pilot like Stude. It would be a natural for a Stude if the AMC Javelin with 4-speed was still easy to find today as it was in 1973.... It worked great in my custom 4-wheeler, but I don't think I can find another. For quite a while I used a Chevy 4-speed in an economy 232V8 powered Stude. I picked up a VEGA 4-speed for it. YUP, the Vega used leftover Saginaw V8 4-speeds. They were full-sized V8 trannys with a lower 1st gear installed for the smaller engine. The Vegas were wornout quickly and junked by the thousands with perfectly good V8 4-speeds that were almost not worn at all. What a plentiful and cheap supply! Those days are gone.... ------------- There were two typical Muncie 4 spd transmissions found in GM cars in the late 60's/early 70's; the M21 and the M22. The M21 was found behind early small blocks and was significantly stronger that the Saginaw (commonly found in Vega's and small block cars that were in the smog era), and considered a little stronger that the BW T-10. (the BW Super T-10 was stronger yet, can be identified by the fine (multi) splined input shaft (exact numbers escape me right now)). Muncie's other 4sp, the M22 was nicknamed the "rock crusher". It was a mean transmission, found behind the baddest horsepower GM could produce. It was the M22 that was behind the high horsepower big-block Corvette's, Chevelle's etc. These are not known for their smooth shifting, but are sure tough to beat. There were also Muncie versions of GM's truck 4spds, but that's a whole other topic of discussion. Either the M21 or M22 are considered desirable, and I'd imagine either would have a happy life behind a Stude. --------------------- 61 Studebaker 4-spd - 1552737 is the correct # for the early 4-speed housing The bell housing you have is for the four speed that came out in '61 and the first part of '62. These are the GM bolt pattern. The number on the housing is a casting number. The correct part number is 1552737. If you measure across the top bolt holes, yours will be about 8 1/4". The bottom holes will be about 9 1/4" and the top holes to bottom holes will be about 4 3/4". The later '62, '63, and '64's with both the three and four speeds will be about 5 1/4" across the top and 6 1/4" across the bottom and 7 1/4" top to bottom. They have a casting number 1539082 and part number is 1539373 I think. Ted -------