Well I knew it had to happen sooner or later I have run into the first few snags on installing the trans. Let me share a few pics and I'll explain.


The finished trans all ready to install. Now for the problem. The trans went in OK, bolted to engine just like it should. But when I postioned the trans where it needed to be it hit the floor pan with the two thing I have marked with purple arrows in the pictures above. Let me back track a minute, I knew where to position the trans based on my truck is setting on 4 jack stands. I placed a level on the breather before I ever took anything loose and recorded what it read. So with the a518 in place all I had to do was keep raising the trans till the level on the breather read like it did before I started. Now back to the interference problem. Passenger side a bolt boss, drivers side a pressure boss. Had I known before the trans went in it would have been an easy fix. But I didn't. The bolt boss was easy let the trans down some and cut it off with a sawzall. The other side was a lot trickier. Really hard to ding the floor pan in with the trans in the way. It would have taken about 5 minutes had I known ahead of time but live and learn.

Picture of clearence on passenger side after cutting.

Picture of drivers side after denting floor in tunnel area. These pics aren't to great best I could do in tight areas. On the dent in floor there is already a dimple in floor in front of where you need one you just have to dent the floor behind that. You can kind of tell that from the pics.
Next problem Cross member. I know Ric aka 77440se made his original cross member and mount work but after several test fits I really just didn't like the way it was working out. So I decided to go a differnt route. The original a518 mount bolts on to a plate with three mount holes. The front two holes line up almost exactly where the original mount in my truck was. So I have decided to get a brand x mount actually a mount from a 90' Chevy truck 305 700r4. It almost bolts perfectly to the trans just have to elongate the holes in the mount a little to the inside and it bolts right up to the trans.

From there I am going to have a single stud mount straight down to mount to a cross memeber that I am going to make from scratch from 2" 1/4"wall box tubing a cross memeber that will bolt up in the orignal place on the truck, (Yeah so I wasted all that time earlier drilling holes). Metal will be here tomorrow. I'll show you how I make this work out. I think it should be pretty sweet.