Engine and Transmission Tech

I am in the process of building a Rover 4.0 with a T5. Parts have been carefully collected of the last few months, and now I am at a critical juncture. What I have so far..... A Rover 4.0. A manual flywheel from a Discovery. An original 215 bellhousing. A T5 transmission that came from an Isuzu Rodeo. An adapter plate to mate the Ford pattern T5 to the 215 bellhousing. In the big picture, everything mates up so far. The only machining to this point was to mill the cast bosses inside the bellhousing to allow bolts from the front to reach back to the adapter plate. So, here is where things get a bit tricky. The Isuzu input shaft is 21T and 24 splines. It goes into the back of the crank, but it doesn't appear to be deep enough at 8-7/8". The solution appears to be to use a Camaro 9-1/4" 21T and 14 spline input shaft for an 88-92 Camaro V6, or the S10 9-1/4" 21T and 26 spline input shaft from a 93-95 S10 2.2L. Plus a crank bushing, and machine the back of the crank 3/8", and that should be resolved. Thoughts?

Next issue is the pressure plate and clutch. The Rover flywheel 6 bolt pattern is exactly 12" across, hole to hole, and it appears that these used 10.5" clutch discs. What pressure plate assembly has this 12" pattern, and could also use the Camaro clutch disc? Do I need to use a Rover pressure plate assembly and swap the clutch disc? Ideally, all of these parts will be cheap and easy to source later if/when they need to be replaced.

Does the guy that made your bellhousing adapter know what input shaft it is set up for? I used D&D, and he specifically wanted the fox body shaft, with 7.18” length from the case surface.

It’s funny, I just went through this exact process of putting together a 4.0 with a T5, and none of what I learned or the path I took helps/matches yours!

TVR used T5’s with a Rover block, I didn’t have to machine the crank, I used the correct crank bushing,and IIRC I just used a McCleod clutch with the correct splines.
I’m in the UK, and all parts were easily got

Chad, it’s wonderful to hear that we are going through the same process on the same car. I had difficulty getting D&D’s support and I wanted to build this project as cheap as possible, so I had to get creative with parts sourcing. The 38k mile trans was $160 about 2 hours from here in NC. Buick bellhousing was $66 shipped from Utah. The manual flywheel set me back $80 shipped from Georgia. I found the 100k mile engine in Wilmington, NC for $500. I took a bit of a gamble on the adapter but I knew the patterns matched. All of this for a $700 car. The fun part has been doing this on an actual budget.

Back to business. There are several different lengths of input shaft available, but the real question is, how much engagement does the input shaft need into the back of the crank? And, what is the best spline position from the back of the flywheel? My adapter is 1/2” thick which I believe it is half the thickness of the D&D version. Can you confirm your adapter thickness? Also, did you shorten the crank by 3/8”. Please post some pictures of your car and engine/trans setup.

I just remembered how to compress pictures. Maybe these will help.....

Michael, this article explains the crank mod. You should check out the SAOCA forum. I have a 65 Alpine myself.

[www.britishv8.org]

I'd find a S-10 input shaft from a 3.97 first T5 that was used with the 4 cyl and 2.8 V6. It's a little longer. You measure input shaft length from the face of the transmission. Yours is probably 6 5/8". Speedway Motors has a longer Chevy pilot bushing that may work. With that low first you will need 3.07 rear gears. I have a few pictures of Cobra Lee's Alpine with a 215.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2021 01:43PM by mgb260.

The pilot bushing is the easiest part to figure out in this; so concentrate on the input shaft length.

The GM V8 10.5" clutch should surely do the job? The bolt pattern can be made to work around the standard Rover bolt pattern, but the recessed dia in the center of the flywheel (where the crank bolts are) needs increasing in dia i recall...

Or just purchase the all-steel flywheel from TS Automotive in ohio.
[www.tsimportedautomotive.com]

$290 drilled for Rover and 10.5 GM covers (and a ford one I'm not sure which one though - certainly not the 10.4" clutch in the 5.0 mustang....

Michael, I don't have any pics that will show you what I haven't done yet! I bought the shell about a year ago, and told my wife I'd finish the basement redo before getting started on the new project. That day is getting close, but in the meantime I've used my (modest!) fun budget to accumulate parts.

I got a used S10 T5 locally, and had a guy in KC that specializes in T5's use the S10 tail piece and join it up to one of his WC Mustang T5's with the 2.95 1st gear. I have a 4.44 rear end (won't go into that yet) so I needed tall transmission gears.

I looked for a couple of the bell housings that I knew could work for a while, and eventually just caved and got D&D's.

I got a junkyard 4.0 about 3 hours away for $450. At some point, the engine build went from a freshened 4.0 to a stroked 300/4.0 blend that'll end up at 302 cu in. I drove to Texas one weekend to get the '64 300.

A while later I got D&D's Buick aluminum flywheel, and then some pistons and rods as sales/deals came up. I'm working on getting the sleeves out of the the Rover, but still have 7 to go...

I tell myself that I'm allowed (see 1st paragraph above!) to do motor stuff that gets it ready ready for other people's work, so I've been trying to get it ready for its first steps at the machine shop.

And I'm building a smaller version of a PTS flowbench, because I can fit that into the woodshop's workflow as basement projects get done.



Still empty here:




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2021 08:59PM by Roverbeam.