driveline 63' Ford

[63 wrongbed]

I finally talked my dad into parting with his truck, that he purchased new in 63'. I grew up in this truck and I am in the process of putting it back on the road.

The truck has 3 on the tree transmission and I want to convert it to an automatic, I would like to keep it original but I have bad ankles and don't want to be shifting gears if I don't have to.

The current setup is a motor mount at the front of the engine and side mounts on the tranny, no tranny cross member, so if I install an automatic tranny can I mock up original setup and fab up some motor mounts for the side of the motor and install a tranny cross member for the new tranny keeping the pinion angle the same as original setup?.

I was also told you can't put a shifter on the floor for the original tranny, because of the linkage, is that true?

If I am able to install new tranny I want a new steering column, the problem with that is the steering column is attached to the steering box as one piece, I haven't found a steering box replacement available on the aftermarket, so I can do this.

Thanks for your help

James Braunwalder

[Jason_S]

By the way you described the engine mounts, it sounds like it's still a 223 I-6 or 292 V-8. Do you plan on keeping the original engine and just swapping transmissions?

As for the floor shifter, plenty of trucks with 3-speed column shifts have been converted to floor shift. I'm not a particular fan of the swap since it seems like the floor shifters just don't work as well as a correctly functioning column shifter.

Haven't done the column swap on these trucks, but it would involve cutting the steering shaft and fabrication of a rag joint connector or something similar to connect to the new column. I'm sure others here have done this and have better information on this.

[63 wrongbed]

yes I plan on keeping the 292 and hopefully swapping the tranny, so I take it that the aftermarket doesn't make a steering box for this truck

[bruceandersson]

You might be able to locate the right column for an auto. This would allow you to keep you current steering box. It would be set up for a fordomatic, which was the original auto trans if provided for the year. I think you could use a cable shifter mounted on the floor. You could go with the Toyota power steering box conversion or you could cut down your shaft and machine it to take a borgenson (SP?) joint. You could also convert to rack and pinion. I am not aware of any new replacement boxes for the straight axle trucks.

[63 wrongbed]

Thanks for the input, much appreciated

[Leeroy]

My 62 was an automatic converted from a column shift by the previous owner. The 62 still had all the linkage points on the column (engine side) but all the linkage between the column and the transmission had simply been removed. When the automatic transmission was fitted, they cut a hole in the transmission cover plate in the floor for the shifter and hooked it up to the transmission via steel rods from memory (looked like it was a kit built for this purpose.) It worked fine, but the shifter let fumes into the cab and that really peeved me. I spent a fair bit of time finding a different shifter that sealed better to the floor so do your homework on whats available and what you want to use.

[Toyz]

CPP makes a replacement gearbox for the Fridges and front leaf sprung slicks. Because it is a separate gearbox; you can adapt a column of your liking. At the expense of losing original appearance, vendors sell crossmembers to allow use of 292 side engine mounts such as those from a passenger car, and one to support the transmission tailshaft. Just keep in mind that you need to retain the original drivetrain lateral offset; many crossmembers will not readily accommodate such.
Paul