I am in the proscess of putting an a518 overdrive trans in my 440 powered 2wd truck. Thought you all might like to know and see how I do it. First let me start off by saying I am no expert on this by no means. This is the first time I have tried this, so I'm sure there will be some problems along the way, but here goes. Thanks to Ric aka 77440se and a few web sites http://www.transmissionsone.com/
http://www.racewithjw.com/
I got all my info and parts.
I have assembled all my parts: Transmission a518 93 2wd with lockup, JW Ultra Bell, vacum switch, etc...
This weekend I have done the first major step which is cut the old bell housing off to make room for the new Ultra Bell.

You see the trans and the bell housing. I made a few reference marks the black dash marks on the trans. for refence. I used a level and square to measure into the pump rail, which is how far you have to cut the bell housing back.

Made my first cut. A lot hard to do than I thought it would be. Used a sawzall with a metal blade. Burnt up two blades before I figured out slow the blade speed down and it cut great and doesn't burn up the blades.


After the first cut I took my 4 1/2" grinded with a grinding wheel and roughed it on back. Then switched to a 60 grit sanding disc on the same grinded to finish. You have to make sure you have clearnce all the way around the outside of the bell or when you are bolting the bell to the pump it doesn't bolt down tight against the pump. Thanks Ric for the tip on that. Down at the trans pan rail is the area you need to watch close for clearence.




And here it is all test fitted. Only snags this day. 2 burnt up saw blades and the bolts that were sent with the Ultra Bell were to long. A few bolts and blades problems solved. A lot of time involved in this step. From what I see of doing this probably the most time consuming and hardest part, but we'll see. I'll keep you posted as the project goes along. Hope you found this useful.

this definately needs to be in the tech archives.

You might also consider sending this to the ramchargercentral.com board as a "How To", I as sure they would like to have this info.

Please DO keep us posted as I for one am VERY interested! Thanks!

Nice job Larry,should be shipping some parts your way this week...

With the ultr bell do they give you the sapacer for the crank? wanting to put my 440 in my ram

I think that's the point of the Ultrabell, versus an adapter plate. You won't need a spacer for the crank since the Ultrabell puts the torque converter and therefore the flexplate at the right depth.

With an adapter plate, you have to make up for the thickness of the plate.

Sweet, if you dont mind me asking how much was the ultra bell? u can pm if you want.

Thanks

Larry and Ric,
what have you guys done for the shifter linkage seeing that the ear gets cut off for the bellhousing ?

Ultra bell was $310.48 plus shipping $326.41. The price in the online was an old listing.

Yeah Chrisf the ear is gone. There will have to be a bracket made to fix that. Also the use of a kickdown linkage cable as well. Those items I'll show what I do as I do them.

On new developments of the project worked on other things on the truck most of the day yesterday, but did get the 727 trans out of the truck to make room for the A518. Also needed the driveshaft out to take to the shop to shorten the drive shaft 3 1/2". That will be done today.

Great post. This is something I would like to do myself.
Is there a horse power limit to the bolt-on ultra bell?
Troy

It is listed as SFI approved for drag racing, so I would imagine that it is only limited to the amount of power the tranny can handle. But I too am curious if anyone has found any specific info on this.

Well for today the drive shaft has now been shortened 3 1/2". And I drilled the new holes to move the cross member back. You have to move the cross member back and you can still use the original mount and cross member but have to make a plate to adapt the mount to the trans. That will happen after the trans is in the truck. This moving the cross member moves it back about 6". Here is a picture of my test fit to give you an idea.

You have to drill three holes two in the lower frame rail and one in the upper. You can't see the upper one in the picture but it is a pain to drill and get the bolt in because the cab is setting so close to the frame. Elongate that back top hole so you can get the bolt in from the top, or use a really short bolt so it doesn't hit the floor pan coming up from the bottom. I chose the elongate method with a bolt from the top side. You can see in the picture the original top front bolt, I couldn't get it out because of the cab being so close to the frame. I just put a nut on it and tightened it up in place so it doesn't rattle around. Well thats about it for today.
As to the horse power limits of the Ultra Bell I really don't know either. You could call JW Performance and ask them. They were really nice and helpful when I called them. I am sure they could answer that question.
Enjoy

AWSOME!
it is going to be interesting to see what kind of mileage that you end up getting out of it. Are you going to be changing the axle ratio....I see 3.55 or 3.91 in the future......

wonder if you could do that say in a 70 charger???

What did you run out of pics????

The first few pictures looked pretty crazy but after seeing the last ones. Am I correct in seeing it's the pump locating the Ultrabell and not the old case where it was cut?

I had a 518 swapped into my 87 Ram. I also moved the crossmember back but used a 92-93 crossmember with a 3 bolt transmission mount.

I didn't really see much change in the mileage. The overdrive just allowed me to drive faster. Same when I lost the overdrive. I went back to driving slower on the highway and with the slower speeds, mileage didn't drop much if any at all.