Hi everyone, it has been a long time since I have posted but I have been hard at work on my 74 f250. I am now using it as a daily driver and have restored a lot of the truck so far. I have changed the engine, bed, cab and nose, added some goodies, almost done with the interior, and started re doing some things. The only thing that is becoming a real problem is the old tired C6 trans....its time for a rebuild, but honestly I want to put a 4 speed in the truck, I just like the 4 speed better. Soooo, this is my story. I had a 79 f350 dump truck, 2wd. It was a parts truck but ran and drove awesome. It had a 400 with a t18 trans. I wanted to use the t18 in my highboy so I kept the trans, and bought a FE bell housing, clutch and pressure plate. I collected all the necessary stuff to do the swap....being that the trans came out of a f350 dump truck it had a non slip yoke on the trans which is perfect because so does my c6. I thought I had the swap all set when I realized that the was no where on the tailshaft of the t18 to mount the 4wd shifter....so I figured ok...I will do a custom twin stick set up. Then I took a couple of measurements and saw the crossmember for the c6 is off about an inch, so again I said, well I will just fabricate my own crossmember....I guess what my real question is....is from my understanding, highboys came with both T18 and np435 transmissions. But Im not so sure about the t18 anymore. Im about ready to just abandon the manual swap and rebuild the c6...seems a lot easier, but in my heart I still want the 4 speed. Is there anyone out there that can offer any info or advice before I just pack all the 4 speed stuff away to collect dust for eternity...lol

 

I'm also a manual transmission enthusiast so I can identify with your desires.

With all the room under there, surely you could build a short crossmember of some kind and fabricate a pivot point for the transfer case shifter. Since I can't totally visualize the arrangement I can't offer any detailed suggestions, only encouragement.

I have to constantly chase off the desire to convert my 78 to a stick. I don't do it because it is the first new vehicle that my wife and I ever bought and I want to restore it as close to factory as possible.

Where there's a will, there's a way. Best of luck with it.