UPDATE...UPDATE...UPDATE
As is usual with projects that are working on a limited budget and trying to do the impossible with nothing.
A Mcgyver maneuver if you will
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With the 4l80 sitting in the shop, eyes then turned to finding a t case that could be married to the mix.
As I mentioned the plan was sort of leaning towards a 203 case.
Yesterday changed all that.
I had posted a craigs list ad for a 203 Ford case and a fella called me with a 205 from a mid/late 70's Ford that he wanted out of his garage for cheap
????????????????????????? OOOOOOOK
So for $100 we scored a 205.
Same basic procedure to adapt to the 4l80
The aftermarket is full of adapters that will pretty much get anything to fit everything, but this comes at $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
With the 205 came the trans adapter to a 4 speed gear box, which by itself is pretty worthless to us.
We have the adapter that came with the TH400 which also is of little use.
Butttttttttttttttttttttt.
These two adapters can be chopped up and used as jigs to layout and drill the holes in a set of steel plates that will form the major parts of a custom adapter.
THE PLAN.
Cut the two cast iron adapters up to give us a usable fixture to drill a new plate that will bolt to the 205 and a fixture to drill the new plate that will bolt to the 4l80
Between the two will be a section of round heavy wall tubing.
Once the plates are machined to the OD and rough faced they will receive an alignment register on the side opposite the place they bolt to ( t case or tranny)
This will allow the old adapters to slip on and register correctly.
Then the bolt holes and dowel holes (Where applicable) can be drilled accurately.
Sadly we do not own a rotary table for the mill.
So, no worries, we will do it the old fashioned way.
We will transfer the holes using a transfer punch and then center drill them and swap bits while still on location and drill the finished hole to size.
May even drill under size and finish with an end mill to negate any drill bit wander/wobble
Tedious work, but my retired time is less spendy than ordering a store bought adapter.
We still need to replace the 31 spline Ford input shaft with a 32 spline for DA BIG GM BOX.
A bit of creative fab and machine work should result in a bomb proof adapter.
A point to remember
The 4L80 uses all metric threads and the old 205 uses inch size threads.
The rear bolt holes in the 4L80 will allow a 3/8-16 bolt to thread in, buttttttttttttttttttttt its not correct.
These are 10 x 1.5 mm threads (.3937")
The 3/8-16 is (.375")
Close but no cigar
Most domestic stuff is all metric after the early to mid 80's WITH MYRIAD EXCEPTIONS
GM used a lot of mix and match during the transition.
The 6.2/6.5 are all metric EXCEPT the bell housing bolts were still 3/8-16 up until 1996.
So here we go.
With what appears to be some sound parts to work with now we should be able to start building a basic power pack.
The entire engine, tranny and T case will need to be gone through to some degree more or less as time goes on.
The plan now is to get the engine, tranny and t case into one compact unit that will enable us to do a proper fitment into the 211 chassis.
After this is done things can proceed a bit faster me thinks.
Life is good
