Buschi!

Hello, I have just finished reading your thread! It has made me interested in building this setup into my '70 Swinger! However, I have not decided on whether to use a 273 or a Slant six! I have both, but both need rebuilding.. Anyway, I do not have an R154, I have a supra W58 instead. The Toyota uses a hydraulic setup for the clutch TOB that's pretty durable and (on the Celicas at least, dunno about Supra) reasonably cheap. The air can also be bled from the system ;D

I was going to try and use an A833 I have, but since I found this... I have at least 3 W58s laying around and I have one W55... might as well go for five speeds!

I will post a picture of the clutch master and slave later today, about to go to breakfast!

Ok, here are the pictures I promised! I can't find the setup I have that is out of the vehicle, so here's what I could photo at the moment:

Slave cylinder new:

I wanted to use a W58 behind my slant 6, but I found that the input shaft was too short if I wanted to bolt an adapter plate between the standard A833 bell and the W58. Only way I thought it would work is if I could bolt them directly together and I didn't feel like I could get it fitted up. Someone did it, but I have no idea how. I went with the R154 because the input shaft was longer.

Here's another shot.

I really wish I had an R154 instead of a W58

I think a W58 would be a great transmission for the swap, they’re supposed to shift smoother than an R154, I think they have the strength (at least for any place a T5 would be used), and they are smaller and thus easier to fit in the tunnel. They have a lot going for them, I just couldn’t figure out a way to get around the short input shaft.

I suppose you could section one of your cases so you could use the face of the trans and the input bearing retainer to locate holes on the back of the Mopar bell. Machine a spacer to hold the throw out bearing snout of the bearing retainer in the center of the Mopar bell, space the sectioned case up off the bell so it is parallel and start center punching holes from the back side of the sectioned case. I would think you would still need to find a way to check the alignment of the input shaft to the crank when you are done, but if all of that were possible, maybe it would work.

Another possibility is to maybe make a pattern off the back of the Toyota bell in something like 1/4” plate. Bolt the pattern to the trans and fit a circular plate that matches the Mopar bellhousing bearing retainer hole to the Toyota bearing retainer TO snout. Square everything up and weld the ring to the 1/4” plate with the bolt pattern. Might have to remove the bearing retainer from the W58 and use the input shaft to center the locating ring, but I would be leery of the input shaft wobbling and throwing the center off. That should give you something that would center on the Mopar bell and locate the holes so that the input shaft would be close to the centerline of the crank. Still need to check alignment somehow, though.

Either way, I don’t believe you can do this without finding some way to bolt the W58 direct to the bell without an adapter plate.

You could look up Dellow Automotive in Ozzy land for a new bell that would bolt up, but last time I checked it was $750 US for the custom bellhousing, and the clutch fork was on the wrong side of the car. If you adapt a hydraulic setup, maybe it would be an issue for you. Just a thought. BTW, don’t email them, you have to call to get any kind of a response.

Golly, Beav, that sounds like a b****!

I can speak from personal experience on the W58 -- they are a really nice-driving transmission.. Have clocked at least 65,000 miles on them in three different Celicas. Never driven an R154, though. In the '79 Celica I drive, I replaced the W50 with a W58... brother let the fluid run out and I burnt it up after a 60 mile drive.. After putting fluid back in the W50, though, it lasted another 4,000 miles (mostly highway) with just 4th gear.

ok , for some reason I didn't notice the way the cylinder was mounted on your bellhousing. On the W5x's, obviously, the slaves are mounted on the side of the bellhousing. D'oh!

Buschi,

Sorry it took so long to find the info on the slave cylinder swap, by now you have probably come up with a solution. After numerous attempts to find the web site that I was referring to I finally found it and bookmarked it this time. Here it is http://www.universityofjeep.ca/Tech/Clutch/Clutch_Slave_Repair.htm

Regards,

Nebo

Buschi,

It has been a while and I wonder if you have solved your slave cylinder problem. I am at the point in my R154 conversion where I need to finalize the components in my hydraulic clutch. The stock Dakota/Jeep setup looks OK but if you are having reliability problems then I think I will go with something else.

Nebo, sorry but I did nothing the last month. My J-heads are shot now so the car is sleeping until it gets a) warmer & b) I found a cheaper way to ship some new heads (thinking about RHS INDY LAX ) from you to Germany.

Regarding the hydraulic. It works fine but the reason for a different set is that I don't like this plastic stuff (and it is complete made of plastic) and you can't bleed it. But you can use it as long as you did find a better one (than you have to let me know immediately... )

I am glad that this thread was brought back.... I'm thinking of doing this behind my 318 Magnum in a Volare... looking at a few options; I have a '93 AX 15 from a Dakota now (nothing yet in the car.... but this trans is collecting dust in the shed) but if I could find the R154 reasonable I could split the BH from the AX 15...
now if the "computer idiot" in me can figure out how to bookmark the thread....

Hi, bringing this back up again. How's the progress everywhere? I'm now driving the 2nd season and I'm still satisfied with the swap. Driving is easy on germany's Autobahn even with a speed of 200km/h. Gas-Mileage is still great with 14-15L/100km.

Been this weekend on the track and this might be the only weak point. It is now a 15 second car. Maybe there has to be a change somewhere.. ;-) In the rear is the 3.23 with 14" wheels.

What's your experience if you're already done and been on a track so far???

There was an article on Allpar, in which someone had a mid 80's Supra or Celica GT in which he put a 318 in it and retained the original Toyota 5 speed gearbox. Read about it a couple of nights ago.

3rd year and still working. But do you know what? I'm swaping the 340 for a 6.1.....

4th year now. 2nd year with the HEMI. The Tranny resists the power of the 6.1 w/o any problems.

But I'm still looking for a different hydraulik system, Master and slave. The Dakota set works but I don't want this non-serviceable plastic stuff.

Any ideas, guys?

Any progress on your builds in the meantime?

What did you end up doing for a flywheel? Seems like I remember seeing you say somewhere that it was an issue when you swapped to the hemi.

My project dead-ended. The car really was too far gone and the solid 74 Duster 360 4 speed sitting next to it made more sense. I couldn't keep them both and so the Valiant is now a new Toyota or something. I did save the crossmember, though, and I so I still have all of the R154 stuff. Struggling to cut up the floor of an original 4 speed Duster 360 so it hasn't made it's way in there. Might still do it, though.