Mysterious Tranny Support - P10 Wagon

[Bob Riding]

I'm getting to the stage where I have done most of the blasting, cleaning, prepping and painting of the engine and chassis, and now I'm trying to put it all back together. I found what looks like it could be a homemade support for the tranny, including a front engine mount. I looked back at my old pics from when I dissasembled the thing back in '04, and sure enough, there it was.

The support was placed about 9" behind the rear motor mounts, bolted to the frame rails,

but because I had George A build me an OD tranny from a P10 parts car unit I had lying around, there is no threaded hole to mount the support.

There is a bulge (but no hole) in the OD unit that corrosponds with the old mounting hole, but I don't want to go drilling and tapping where no man has gone before!

Question #1 Is this support necessary (was it stock for the wagons?)

Question #2 If yes, can I drill and tap me a new hole without fear of screwing things up?

Thanks

Bob

[David Strieb]

Looks very homemade to me, I've been under lots of '40 plys through the years and have never seen anything like that. I had a r10od in my '40 years ago and used the stock mounting as you have pictured.

[Jim Yergin]

Bob,

On my '41 P12 there is no transmission support. There are only the front and rear engine mounts. I installed my O/D transmission just fine without any additional mounts. It just hangs off the engine. I would think your P10 used the same frame as my P12.

Jim Yergin

[Bob Riding]

Thanks Jim...I agree that unless there is some problem that the prior owner thought needed to be fixed, there wouldn't be a need for additional support...I believe that the P10 and P12 frames are similar if not identical.

[Bob Riding]

Looks very homemade to me, I've been under lots of '40 plys through the years and have never seen anything like that. I had a r10od in my '40 years ago and used the stock mounting as you have pictured.

Thanks Dave...that's just the experienced eye that I was looking for!

[greg g]

I would think it's from the department of redundancy department. And I would delete it ad keep it around for engine swap in some other vehicle. If you are not planning any Baja style off roading or pulling a heavy trailer, I wouldn't be concerned about reinstalling it.

[Don Coatney]

Homemade for sure. I wonder why, as it should not be required. There must be some reason a prior owner did this. It must have been to fix a problem but I do not have a clue what that problem was.

[49DODGEBOY]

Nice looking restoration you have going there,

[Merle Coggins]

I wonder if it had bad engine mounts and that was someone's way of "fixing it" so it wouldn't move around so much.

Merle

[Don Coatney]

I wonder if it had bad engine mounts and that was someone's way of "fixing it" so it wouldn't move around so much.

Merle

That was what I was thinking. Had to be a band aid fix for the real problem.

[RobertKB]

Nice job on the chassis.

Looks like with the homemade tranny support that he used a front engine mount between the bigger piece and smaller piece that actually bolted onto the tranny. Nice job whoever did it but unnecessary. Maybe he was a believer in Murphy's Law.

[Bob Riding]

The wagon came from a turkey ranch in Tonopah, NV so it saw commercial duty, delivering eggs and birds but why would that make any difference?

[aero3113]

Maybe he had nothing to do after thanksgiving when there were no turkeys around and decided to make something for the car. Just a guess

[Bob Riding]

What a turkey! (sorry, couldn't help myself!)

[Dodgeb4ya]

I believe most factory installed OD's starting in 52 had a different type of lower bell housing to support the extra weight of the OD trans. It was a cast iron lower cover that the lower 2 holes of the 6 holes on a OD attached to (Threaded into).

That homemade mount looks kinda weak too! I don't think you need to install another auxillary mount to support the OD. It should be good to go with the way it is.

Bob

Edited May 5, 2010 by Dodgeb4ya

[Bob Riding]

Thanks for the advice...I will follow it!