couple of questions for you guys:

i have 318 out of an 86 diplomat that was hooked up to an automatic, but i am going to use my manual tranny. i have heard sometimes the crank isnt machined for the pilot bushing if it was an automatic. mine looks like it is machined for it, but how can i tell for sure? perhaps someone has pics of a machine versus non-machined crank?

second, i want to put headers on it, and i noticed the heads have these small holes below the ports that were for some sort of smog tubes. do i have to weld these shut, or will the headers cover those?

thanks for any help guys!

In the back of the crank there is a 'pocket' for the snout of the torque converter. You can get a bushing or a bearing made for a late model manual trans that presses into that pocket. ('96 dakota?)

You might not have to go with the late model part. An old style manual trans setup has the crank drilled deeper than the pocket with a smaller hole to take a bronze bushing (pilot bushing). If it is drilled but not to size you might be able to find a special bushing for that, but it is easier to just put in the late model pilot. If the hole is not there at all you can still use the late pilot but you have to cut off the tip of the trans input shaft.

Good luck

that 86 crank will take a stock bronze pilot bushing...a lot of mid 80s came with the 833-OD trans so it should be compatable

the holes can be pluged with JB weld

drilled/taped and set screws counter sunk in them

the header flange will not cover them,gasket may hide them but wont seal them

most times they are pluged solid with carbon and wont leak anyways...but check all 8 of them with a wire to see if the are pluged

I never had a problem hitting them with a drill 1/8"-1/4" then fill with jbweld

Thanks for the info guys, much appreciated! Im going to clean out the holes and drill and tap them. Mike, you think i should take pics and share or would be a waste of time? Thinking someone could benefit from watching me screw up I checked my crank; seems it IS machined as described above, the hole for the converter is there of course, and then there is a smaller hole much deeper in the crank. I am going to try to get pics of this as well to illustrate for someone in the future

Alrighty then. here are pics on what i did for those pesky smog tube passages:

I started with these nice and crusty holes

I used a brass wire brush on my drill to clean the pockets out, and drill the holes out for the size of the srcews i chose to use. Bit size will very with the size screw/bolt you choose

i chose to use the self-tapping type screws to plug the holes, so tapping the holes wasn't necessary for me. might be different if you choose a different type of bolt. these were the easiest for me. i simply wrenched them in till they were good and tight

to help protect the sealing surfaces around the ports from accidental marring, i masked them off. of course you can still damage them if you are careless, so be careful.

using a sawzall, i carefully cut the screw heads off, and ground them flush with the machined surface of the head

to finish it off and make it look like less of a hack job, i used jb weld and used a razor blade to make it smooth and flush. this should help to ensure the screws stay put and sealed, though i doubt it would be and issue cuz them suckers were TIGHT! This may only be relevant to poor folk like me who cant afford to replace their crappy smog heads to use headers, but i hope it benefits someone

well done

pics are worth a 1000 words

I never thought to use some self tappers like that,thats another good idea

see shareing the knowlege no mater how simple it is,is a great learning tool

I will try that next time insted of the set screws,I allways have self tapper around...but allways have to go get the set screws and spend $

When I put an A833 in my 87 Diplomat the stock 318 was drilled for a pilot bushing.

I did some heads awhile back I think those smog holes were close to a no.7 drill bit so I just tapped them 1/4-20x.250 deep and used allen headed set screws that were .250 long which ended working quite well also.

Mitch