Transmission mount options-car missing mounting "ears"

[J-hop]

Hello everyone,

Well I've tried this question over at hybridZ and haven't had any bites yet so I thought I'd try over here as well.

Long story short, one of the previous owners of the car (late 1973 240z) cut off the transmission tunnel ears in the process of installing a v8. I am currently returning the car to near stock with a l24 mated to a 280zx 5spd and obviously can't use the original crossmember due to the lack of "ears" on the body to bolt the crossmember to.

I am not set up to weld in my garage and do not have any welding skill so I have two options: (1) find a bolt on crossmember that would work (2) tow the car to a shop and have them weld something up.

The second option is a lot more hassle so I would like to avoid this if possible. I have been looking at bolt on crossmembers for transmissions like the turbo 350 or t-56 transmissions from v8 swap kits which bolt through the floor pan. Unfortunately from pictures I can not tell if any of these crossmembers would even be close to working. I don't have a strong sense of it the mount height of any of the transmissions would be close to the original transmission.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Or know if any of the v8 trans crossmembers would work?

Thanks.

Edited January 30, 2013 by J-hop

[Zed Head]

How about bending up a couple of U shaped brackets, with the bottom of the U flattened, drilling them for the through bolts, and bolting them to the original locations. That area is strong enough and you'll be able to use the original cross-member.

[beermanpete]

You could propably use steel angle and make some brackets that bolt to the body in such a way to use the original cross member. The difficulty will be getting the position correct. If you have access to another car you should be able to take some measurements of the position of the tailshaft of other convenient reference point near the back of the transmission.

[J-hop]

Those are some great ideas! In terms of getting the positioning correct I was reading the hybridZ thread about the DIY laser driveline alignment tool. It might take some fiddling with the jack but I could probably get a decent alignment and then mark that off and drill the holes.