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Engine and trany swap


51Meadowbrook

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The Engine will be a straight bolt in.  The Bell Housing may be different and may not have the mounts on the sides as needed to do a straight swap as a complete package.  I only mention this because of my experience with the trucks changing bell housing design coming into the mid/later 1950's. Can you crawl under the 1958 to get photographs in order to compare to your 1951?  

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9 minutes ago, classiccarjack said:

The Engine will be a straight bolt in.  The Bell Housing may be different and may not have the mounts on the sides as needed to do a straight swap as a complete package.  I only mention this because of my experience with the trucks changing bell housing design coming into the mid/later 1950's. Can you crawl under the 1958 to get photographs in order to compare to your 1951?  

The 1958 I'm looking at buying is located in Florida and I'm located in Texas . I'll have to see if the guy can send me some pics

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44 minutes ago, 51Meadowbrook said:

I'm also looking at a  flathead 6 with tranny out of a 1954 dodge truck it's in California so either way it's going to be a road trip! 

If all else is equal,go for the 58 engine. It is the peak of the 230 evolution,and makes more power and is arguably more durable than the early ones. Plus it is a 230,and the one out of the truck is probably a 218.

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2 hours ago, Don Coatney said:

If your Dodge is fluid drive and you use the fluid drive and transmission from the Dodge behind the Plymouth engine an 8 bolt crankshaft flange will be required. I am not sure if the 1958 Plymouth has an 8 bolt flange on the crankshaft.

I'll have to ask the guy with the  engine if it's on there . I asked the guy and he's not sure. Would the flange on my motor go on that Plymouth motor? 

Edited by 51Meadowbrook
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Looks like a 3-sp manual to me.  Notice the drain plug on the pass side and lack of an oil pan if it were an automatic.  Looks like the engine, minus the bellhousing and that trans is a bolt in but, you'll have to do some parts swapping to get a trans behind it that will work in you '51.

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The late flatheads all use the 8 bolt flange.  The 4 bolts and 8 bolts will interchange flywheels.  I have had to do this both ways to make Transmission combo's work.

I often wondered if the 8 bolt was offered do to increased power output on the later engines.

The last good example for me, is I swapped a late 230 into a 1949 Power Wagon. The Power Wagon had a 4 bolt flywheel with a 218 in it.  I had to reuse the 4 bolt flywheel, and the holes lined up and everything worked out great.  It has been 5 years now and the truck is still going strong.  For what it is worth, I didn't make this choice, my customer didn't want to buy a 8 bolt flywheel at that time....  But in his defense, it worked!  LOL

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Yes a 4 bolt flywheel will work on an 8 bolt crankshaft. I am running such a combination in my P-15. The problem is the fluid drive coupling requires the 8 bolt crankshaft and if you bolt up a fluid drive 8 bolt coupling to a 4 hole crankshaft the bolts will shear and it will fail.

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16 hours ago, JerseyHarold said:

The carb linkages and possibly exhaust manifold were different so you'd have to re-use them off your old engine.

I swapped the 201 in my plymouth for a 218. I had to replace the original exhaust manifold because it had a crack, found one on ebay. After I got it together and into the car I found out the original exhaust pipe would not fit the new exhaust manifold. The two mounting bolts on the exhaust manifold were wider apart than the original bracket on the exhaust pipe - it would not fit. I had to take the exhaust pipe from the muffler to the manifold along with the manifold to a muffler shop where they found a bracket that would fit and fabricated a new pipe. Then I took them back home, mounted it all up and tightened, tack welded the bracket onto the new pipe, then took it back to the muffler shop and let them finish the weld. I have no idea why the exhaust manifold was different but I do know that all exhaust manifolds for these flatheads are not the same.

Get a measurement of those two bolts on the manifold..

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21 hours ago, Don Coatney said:

Yes a 4 bolt flywheel will work on an 8 bolt crankshaft. I am running such a combination in my P-15. The problem is the fluid drive coupling requires the 8 bolt crankshaft and if you bolt up a fluid drive 8 bolt coupling to a 4 hole crankshaft the bolts will shear and it will fail.

Thank you Don, good to know!  Is it because of the extra mass associated with the Fluid Drive(Flywheel, clutch, pressure plate, and the Converter all as one large mass)?

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Yes, the converter/fluid coupler is huge and the 8-bolts are needed to keep it all together.

The one item not yet mentioned is that there is a difference in flywheels between the 208-218 and everything else. Using a 218 flywheel on one of the other engines will likely cause problems with starter engagement.

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Thankfully I have my original 201, all complete from the balancer to the parking brake drum.  So I won't have to suffer from a miss matched flywheel on my PT57 Engine/trans combination.

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3 hours ago, 40plyguy said:

 Read through the above messages with interest. Will a 218 flywheel and bellhousing mounted to a 230 that had fluid drive cause any starter issues?  If so , is it just an issue of the starter drive not hitting the flywheel? Are the starters different? Just trying to get this straight.

It might. Suggest you do a mock up before installing the engine/bell housing/flywheel in the vehicle. I had to modify my bell housing as pictured below.

Bell-starter1.jpg

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Luckily during the Lone Star Round up,  I ran into a buddy of mine that has a 49 Plymouth with a 218 and a 5 speed Transmission that he just rebuilt, and lives 2 miles from me! So we're going to pull it so he can put in a 440 and put the 218 and 5 speed in mine! And the price ain't bad $500 for all of it 

Edited by 51Meadowbrook
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I'm not sure what kind?  I just know it's in his 49 Plymouth mounted to his 218 and he claims that he can drive it at 70 mph no problem using the 5 speed. I'm guessing it has overdrive to do that? I may have to change the U Joint connection on my drive shaft , lengthen or shorten it

2 minutes ago, Don Coatney said:

What kind of 5 speed?

 

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You will need a new driveshaft along with a new rear axle in order to maintain an e-brake. Your oem setup has the e-brake on the trans.

The Explore and Cherokee units are very popular.

I will also suggest that you take a bunch of photos of the installed package so that you can sort through the clutch linkage and related mounting issues.

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Also there are at least 3 different exhaust manifolds with the outlets in different spots used on the 23" engine......one that the outlet is between # 2 & 3 cylinders, another with the outlet between # 4 & 5 cylinders and a third that has the outlet at # 7 cylinder or just past # 6 cylinder........all bolt onto the block in the same way as each other but I can't recall whether they all have the same size outlet hole.....the first two do but not sure about the third one.............andyd 

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