My 67 seems to be a combination of parts. VIN tag shows it was a 300CI six with a three on the tree. Persons unknown replaced 300 with a 390 which has been bored .030 and a Street Master single plane intake. I replaced 750 Holley with a 750 Carter, up to hotter street cam, headers, intake and exhaust polished and three angle valve job. It will burn the tires all through 2nd and into third. As a street machine please advise if I would be better served with a 3 speed manual with overdrive or 4 speed toploader as autos are a no go. What else might have to be changed in drivetrain?

 

i had the same problem on my 71 f100 and tryed 5 trannies until i put a 3speed with manual overdrive out of a 85 f150 in it and it really drives quite nice now. when i done mine i had to enlarge the holes for the carrier bearing and use the front half of the driveshaft out of the 85 but the back half off of a 71. on the slip yoke on the back i had to remove a strip of plastic on one of the splines so it would fit. other than that it fit great and it really runs well. hope this can help

 

I personally love 4 speeds.. especially behind 390's.. I've run both OD 4speeds and 1 to 1 high gear 4 speeds and I just yanked the OD and went back with my original top loader.. By the way, when I say top loader, I'm meaning the smaller 4 speed that was also used in cars as opposed the the large truck 4 speeds. I believe both are technically top loaders, but I think there was also a 4 speed that ford built for cars and light trucks that was a side loader. My 4 speed is designated on the ford build sheet as a "close ratio".. 1st is fairly low for good off-the-line torque then a fairly steep jump to 2nd, then 2nd to 3rd, and 3rd to 4th is all fairly close. It's great for high speed cornering and downshifting because 2nd, 3rd and 4th are so high. I'm thinking of adding a gear venders overdrive unit.. I've heard great things about them and that means I get to keep my beloved top loader and have 2 ranges of overdrive to boot.

 

As my 390 is set up for street,psonnier, that was my thinking. Say a top loader that came out of a 63 Galaxie or maybe a 68 Cyclone. My P/U's bed may be used but I ain't pulling nothing!!! She is my hot rod. With the three speed pedal to the metal gets me wheel hop and that ain't what I want. But at least she do sixty in 2nd.

 

Sounds more like the Borg Warner T-19 the close ratio T&C toploader wouldn't have made it in a truck.

 

What kind of shifter do you use for a car 4 speed in a truck? I would like to run one of the little 4 speeds but don't know what to do for a shifter.

 

I think he put a 4spd out of a car into it, like the original tranny change he did. At-19 1st gear would be beyond fairly low, it would be down right snail crawlin.
I have asked about the same thing to no avail. There are several sizes of toploaders the mustangs are different than the galaxies and so on.
TRy here http://www.4speedtoploaders.com/
Im thinking the street rod style kee's top loader looks similar in shape to my t-18 and wouldnt be to hard to get into place.

 

I run Toploaders in all my hot rods...both trucks and cars.

Both trucks(67,69) have wide ratio, short length(24") models in them. There are two lengths, either will work, just need to make driveshaft fit. I have always used the short one and had some parts left over to use.

I usually just get a Hurst "Indy" shifter (universal model) and make it fit. The biggest problem is what seating you have. Bench seat is kinda hard and will usually have to make a shifter tower to get around it. Buckets will work great(I have buckets in both trucks). I run a Chyrsler pistol grip handle in my '69, I made a "custom" length shifter for '67(since I did not have anything to fit it right). I like the shifter right at elbow height for easy cruising(read that leaning on/resting on).

If you check out Dave Kee's sight, I'm sure you will get enough information to swim in for awhile. He's a good guy, I buy all my stuff for rebuilds off him.

FYI, get a WIDE RATIO tranny. This will have the deeper first gear and easier starting out. Don't fall for the "close ratio" is better routine...blah, blah, blah. The close ratio box has a first gear that is darn near close to wide ratio SECOND GEAR!!!!! Imagine trying to start out.....lots of clutch riding. In my '70 F100, I had a 302, toploader and pulled my race car trailer with it. 4000 lb truck, 1100 lb trailer, 4000 lb race car. It went anywhere and started out great.

There is two style of tranny mounts, you need the Fairlane(?) version. It will duplicate the mount that is in the truck already. You may need to slide the crossmember up a couple inches and re-drill the holes(no biggie). It has the wide bolt pattern for the mount, where the other version is inline(along centerline of driveshaft).

I'd be glad to assist you in anyway I can. If you need some pictures, let me know.

Larry

 

Freightrain, please explain the shift tower. Are you raising the mounting of the shifter?

 

The truck FE bellhousing is 5/8" deeper than a car bellhousing. I've been told it's best to run the small block toploader because it's input shaft is longer and has more reach into the piliot bearing than the big block toploader which has a shorter snout and might not engage enough for proper support.

 

If I was to go with one of those top loaders would i have to make a new shifter hole or would it fit in my existing t-18 hole? Are the bolt paterns not compatible with my existing t-18 bellhousing?

 

bellhousing pattern will work as long as you dont get one of the very first toploaders that had the narrow bolt pattern (if I remember it right there were two styles) also the handle will come out somewhere near here
that's where a TKO comes out, but the toploader I had came out in a similar spot I used a automatic transmission tunnel cover and a cut off wheel and made my own hole in a blank for it

 

I see....but would the streetrod tranny of kee's work better for shifter throw?
like here....http://www.davidkeetoploaders.com/toploaderpricelist.htm scroll althe way down..... the shifter is on top like the t-18 that would put it further forward from the seat. What do you think?

 

ok.. guess I'll clarify my "build sheet" statement. One of my many fords is a 69 mach 1.. Factory 390, 4spd. a/c,PB, PS.. yadda yadda.. I have to agree with wanting a wide ratio in a truck where the possibility exists of pulling anything.. On the other hand, 69 mach 1's weren't the lightest things built either, and I have no trouble starting out, especially concidering the torque a 390 can make. The best case cenario for me in a car would be to have my 4 spd backed by an aux. box w/2 ranges of overdrive, and use a low ratio rear end to get the torque off the line. Same idea would work well in a truck except that I'd prefer to have the aux box with 1 underdrive and 1 OD in addition to 1:1. I'm not too familiar with the different truck transmissions except the ZF-5 that I have in my 85 F150 turned by a 429 from a '73 LTD. As for the old truck trannies, all I know is the 4 speed that the shifter comes out through the top and the car 4spd that everybody tells me is called a top loader... shifter bolts to the tailshaft housing and linkage goes through the side of the case.. Told it's called a top loader because the gears are "loaded" into the case through a hole in the top as opposed to some that are loaded through the side through a hole that is covered by a cast iron plate that also contains the shift linkage... I know both 3 speeds and car 4 spds will do more than fine in a truck. I've personally pushed over 400HP through a 3 spd, and it took every bit of it.... can't say the same for the rest of the drive train however.. 4 spd should fit the same bellhousing that the 3 spd does. I've never heard of different lengths of bellhousings or that there's any difference between car and truck housings.. All I know is my 390/4spd setup in my mustang is basically identical to the 390/ 3spd setup I ran in my '73 F100.. Except for tailshaft lengths. Oh.. And one other thing to watch out for when using car 4 spds.. Some of the car 4 spd trannies had the speedo cable coming in from the passenger side.. This setup uses backwards cut speedo gears... I'm finding out the hard way that there isn't many choices in gear sizes for this setup.. The previous owner of the car thought a speedo gear was a speedo gear and installed a common set that you would find on most other ford trannies, and actually was turning speedo in reverse.. Taking miles off the odometer.. Guess that was a good thing?

 

that pic looks a lot like it would put you right up near where the original shifter was