Originally posted by getrdone Kmack, any tricks for getting the tranny on quickly. Getting tired of bench pressing this thing

Basically, what John said above. Use a floor jack to support the tranny while stabbing it into the clutch/pressure plate. You'll need to raise/lower the tail shaft until you get it almost seated. at this point, you'll to make sure the splines on the input shaft line up witht he splines on the clutch disc. You may need to rotate the tranny slightly (usually no more than a few degrees rotation to either side). When the splines line up, it will 'clunk' into place and then slide easily on the alignment pins on the back of the engine block. Once that has happened, put at least one bolt into one of the two upper bolt holes on the bellhousing, and you can let it hang there until you get the rest of the bolts/mounts in place.

A few words of advice: install the tranny without any fluid. It's lighter, and the fluid won't run out of the tail shaft housing all over the floor or you. If you have fluid on the tranny already, a spray paint can cap works pretty good to make a seal at the output shaft. It may not stop the fluid from leaking out the back completely, but it will work in a pinch. Otherwise, just use the driveshaft and let it hang while installing the tranny.

Oh and get an extra set of hands to help out. Well worth it!

I agree with the no fluid - I will not pull or install a tranny with fluid. It is just to nasty. I also am a stickler for clean work area, clean floor, clean tranny case. It makes a difference.

Ok, maybe I'm a little slow but I lowered the tranny back on the ground and took a second look at what was going on. Turns out that on the crankshaft side of the flywheel the is a small spacer disk that rides on the end of the crank.

When you remove this piece its really easy to install the pilot bushing and from then on I had no probs. Once I jacked up the tranny it went in and bolted up in minutes.

All thats left is installing the pedals, shifter and bleeding the system.

Thanks for the info and advice. Here is what I've found doing the auto to 5spd swap in my 74 260

You need:

Flywheel,pressure plate, clutch,clutch alignment tool, master and slave, hard line from master to slave hose, shifter, shifter boot, pedals(brake and clutch), longer bolts for bellhousing, different starter for manual flywheel.

My 5spd came out of a 78 that had the same rear gear ratio as the 74 that its going into, so no speedo gear change is needed (I hope)