I-6 vs. v-8 trans crossmember

[lilred67]

for those of you who have changed over your 6 cly. trucks to v-8 and move the manual tranny crossmember foward for the v-8 to sit in the correct position.the question is did you reuse your crossmember or us a v-8 cross member from a donor truck. i moved mine last night and it was not as straight foward as i thought it would be(thought i was working on a ferd) . the bolt holes wouldn't all line up and the corners of the crossmembers where hanging up on the inside on the frame. i had to completely remove the crossmember and do some engineering to make it all fit.i air chiseled the rivets out and bolted it back in with grade 8 hardware. what kind of problems did any of you have??

[OlChev67]

I didnt do anything with my crossmember when I switched to v8. I just have the bellhousing crossmember. This is the only pic I found of it.

Oh you said the correct position. I am not sure about mine being in the correct position, but it works.

[glock35ipsc]

If you are reusing the I-6 engine stands, then it shouldn't have to be moved. If you switched to the V-8 stands, I would guess some people would just use an automatic crossmember, or an aftermarket crossmember since most all 3 and 4 speeds I've seen has the ability to be mounted from the rear, as is the trans in the pic above.

My truck was already swapped over to a V-8 when I bought it, using the original 3-speed manual trans in the original location, with the I-6 towers.

[lilred67]

i wanted to move mine when i did the v-8 swap just to make it look factory.
yes glock35ipsc, i'm using v-8 stands and anything else i needed from a donor truck except crossmember and tranny.
the original x-member seemed to work fine after some adjustments,i thought it would slide foward and bolt in with no problems.

[shifty]

the L6 and V8 trucks had totally diff't tranny crossmembers. V8 is flat and wide, L6 is half-round and skinny. the V8 xmember sits back about a foot from where the L6 does.

[2bits]

I was wondering about that issue with manual crossmembers because it didn't look like it could move anywhere. Mine was riveted in too, the PO just cut out the crossmember with a torch when he put in an automatic.

That sounds like a real headache, but might be easier now that you know the V-8 member is a different part. Good luck!

[shifty]

you can also grind out the old crossmember. that's what i did.