Nice job Bill, the best part is yet to come that being driving the finished product.

Charlie you're a sharp fella to catch that! hahahah. I agree with you and I caught that during the build process. the black one in the car has the seam on the right side, the bare metal one is the model to duplicate from. good catch sir!

Nice job on the crossmember.  The only thing I'd do differently is put the bolt holes on the side opposite the tubing weld seam.
If you have not already, smooth that seam so that the washers and bolts clamp properly.


Lawrenceville, GA

Forgot to include a pic of the crossmember installed. Crude pic, I don't have a lift yet so undercar pics are tricky.

Like I said, my car is a daily driver work in progress so forgive the ratty interior. It'll be nice one day. I chose to use a shifter from summit. It's a generic summit brand billet shifter for mustang T5 for about $140. It may be Chinese, I don't know, the box says made in USA and it looks like a quality product. The reason I chose it is because it had adjustable stops. I didn't order a shift handle until I'd finished the job because I wasn't sure where it was going to come up through the floor. I didn't want a potentially long shift handle applying excessive pressure on the forks and wearing them out prematurely. So, once I saw where the handle came out I got on the Core shifters website and ordered the Hurst shifter handle I liked which bolts right up. In the pic I have the stock bench seat in the rearmost position and the shifter is in neutral. I'm 6'1” so my seat is staying there haha. Looking at it now with the shift handle I got, I think it might be for a truck but I'm happy with it. I don't think it looks rat roddish (which I hate). I can shift through all the gears while sitting upright and no leaning forward for the upper gears. Plus once it's in 5th I still have room for a female to sit close. Now that I have done this setup, I don't feel that the shifter with adjustable stops was quite so necessary. Especially if you're going to use a shorter stick.

The underside of the trans crossmember

Once I had the trans in after much grinding and trying and grinding on the input shaft because I didn't want to grind too much, I fabbed this transmission crossmember. It uses the factory holes in the frame and the stock mustang transmission mount. I actually made two of these. One is in the car and the other is so I'll have a model to duplicate from if you guys have any interest in these. My car is a 55. I imagine that a 56 and possibly t-birds would be the same. I've been driving the car for a few weeks now. Everything seems to be rocking on just fine!

I re-read petew's install link that charlie mcraney posted. Pete covered the install very well and I don't see any need really to go over how I did mine all over again except to maybe touch on the few things I did differently or offer a few tips. My car is kinda rough and is daily driven so forgive some of my pics if it's not all that pretty. One of the things you have to do for the swap is shorten the input shaft. For backyard types like me, I put a yoke in the tailshaft, put a ratchet through the yoke, put the trans in gear and had someone rotate the output shaft while I ground on the input shaft. I know that seems sketchy, but I did it a little bit at a time so as not to create a lot of heat at once. This also let me recreate a consistent bevel on the end like it originally had. p

That's fantastic "fastbill"!
Looks like the rain here in NorCal has ebbed at least for a while, so I will start my disk brake conversion and the T5 swap soon myself. I look forward to your pics and descriptions. I may be interested in one of your X members as well.

Rowen
55CV
Woodland, Ca

hi all. sorry for the delay. i have a lot on my plate and my projects go kinda slow sometimes. i started on my swap a week or so ago. i've just about got it wrapped up now. should be finished tomorrow. i've taken a few pics along the way of things and i made my own trans crossmember for the swap. i'm going to whip up a few of them and offer them up for sale if there's any interest in them. the crossmember i made uses the stock frame mounting holes and the stock fox body transmission mount. PF Arcand, i did definitely trim some off the end of my input shaft. i've got pics of all that to post soon too. i just wanted to finish it all up before i post. just checking in with you guys