Red Ram V8 engine swap

[JVL]

I have a 1953 Dodge Pilot house and want to ad a 1955/ Red Ram Poly 270 cu inch v8. The engine is in great running condition with. motor mounts and trans. The problem is the trans is a Powerflite 2 speed. My question is will the 3 speed manual trans that I currently have bolt up to the V8 . Help please. Thank you 

[Tubman]

I don't know if this will help you or not, but I did something like this many years ago. I was building a "T"-bucket with a '53 Hemi. The hemi originally came with a "Gyro-Matic" transmission, which was a torque converter ahead of a regular three-speed transmission. I found a three speed out of a non "Gyro-Matic" car. It had a very long input shaft, because it had to span the entire space between the front of the transmission all the way to the flywheel (after the torque converter assembly had been removed). After I found the proper flywheel and clutch assembly, I got everything together and running. (I should mention that the bellhousing was probably a foot deep.) After I got the car running and driving, I found the engine was very worn out, short on power, and burned a lot of oil. A couple of months later I was able to buy a wrecked '55 Dodge hardtop with a 270 hemi and a Powerflite in excellent shape. I pulled the engine out of the car, and it bolted right into my "T", using the existing bellhousing, clutch, flywheel and transmission. There was one problem. The end of the crankshaft was not bored for a pilot bushing. The hole was there in the end of the crankshaft, but it wasn't finished and was about .060" too small. I solved this by turning down a stock pilot bushing until I could press fit it in the crankshaft. This worked fine for the next couple of years while I still had the car. In retrospect, I probably shortened the life of the pilot bushing because the walls were only about .030" thick, but it never gave me any trouble.

 

The short answer to your question is probably "YES", IF you can find all of the right parts. You will probably have a MUCH harder time finding the parts than I did in 1965. Good Luck!.

Edited September 16, 2018 by Tubman