Sbc bell housing

[RodsRods]

I have a question. I have spent hours searching but have not found a steel bell housing adapter anywhere. I just picked up a 75 fj55 it has a sbc in it with a steel bell housing.
Am I the only one? Is there some redneck engineering going on here?

 

[3_puppies]

I had a parts rig a few years ago that had a steel bellhousing, it was presidentially amended. it was not a redi made unit.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Before the alum. AA bell housing came out, they used a steel housing and parts had to be machined to fit. I believe Downey Toyota sold one.

Old School!

 

[RodsRods]

I'll take pics today if it's not dark when I get home. It looks a tad hokie lol and the heater fix was simply to remove the vent .

 

[scrapdaddy]

I was just looking at some old instructions for an Advanced Adapter V8 kit. You had to use a 1957 Chevy bellhousing #3755343 ( see if you can find that one today ). Their adapter went between the Toyota transmission and the Chevy bellhousing. Chevy flywheel and clutch. I bet you have the batwing rear mount, it bolts to the transfer case and spans across to both sides of the frame. They leaked a lot.

Back in the day, I used one of the first alum. housings they came out with in my 76 FJ40, I put it in @ 1978. The casting wasn't perfect and I had to redrill the dowel holes for fitment.

 

[RodsRods]

I'm thinking about doing an ls swap but not sure what I need to pull it off or if I can even use this set up.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Advanced Adapter and Mark's Adapter, both make a nice kit for the LS motor. You can get into things like which transmission to use. A 5 speed overdrive works well with the LS. With not knowing what you have, I would steer away from using it with the new motor. The LS requires it's own flywheel, the old Chevy stuff won't work.

 

[RodsRods]

That's what I'm reviewing. A new aa kit is 8-1k vs just a flywheel for 300.

 

[scrapdaddy]

I went with the AA kit for my 5.3, but I used a new Toyota H55 5 speed and split case transfer. There are a few choices to think about. Are you keeping the 4 speed?

 

[RodsRods]

I have yet to decide. End of the day I prefer and auto foe general and wheeling. I am trying to keep cost down though. I don't want to do axle swaps or anything major like that on this rig.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Well the auto would solve the bellhousing problem. Here's my kit just for fun...

There's quite a few guys running the LS motor and NicP has a good thread on his swap with the auto. My New Project

 

[RodsRods]

I have to say I'm a tad jelly. I just hate to toss money out when I can make stuff work lol. The sbc is in the truck and running I know that their is a ls to sbc flywheel so that would make for a very economical swap.