55 Chevy Trans Cross Member
 

Helping a friend with his 55 chevy, we installed a new bench seat shifter on his muncie 4 speed. He just picked up car about a year ago. So Im under this thing a see it has no trans cross member. The engine is a 350 with the old front mounts.The guy who sold it to him had been driving it like that. If he puts a cross member in it will he have to move the engine mounts to the side?

The way it is now, there are 2 mounts at the front of the engine and 2 mounts on the bell housing.....I ran my 55 with those mounts for years without issue. If you add a cross member and leave the other 4 mounts, no problem, but if you remove the bell housing mounts, you should adapt side engine mounts. Its too long a distance from the front to that rear mount.

Thanks poncho
 

Ihave to take a look under there, cant remember seeing anything at the bell house holding it up. thanks!

We sold a 4speed to a guy; he sent me pics of his install because he was having some clutch issues. He had front engine mounts with the bellhousing and trans just hanging :eek: ...said he always did it that way, street and oval track :nono: . Thats a long way to go. If you have no bellhousing mounts, all my dad did on his 55 chevy was a straight piece of bar stock tacked on top of the rails with a OEM rubber mount (this was a LONG time ago)

If you use a trans mount on a crossmember, I like the OEM style rubber over the high durometer urethane. Ive had some customers complain that brick of urethane gives their car vibration issues or that its too tall. YMMV

POST PICS

It is impossible to have just the front mounts and no others. The trans would be sitting on the ground....The stock setup is front engine mounts with bell housing mounts....The trans hangs in mid air.

AutoGear, I think this 55 is set up the way, remember seeing two stumps on the frame at about the bellhouse, must have been where old trans mounts. Old owner said he had some binding, and had to keep messing with the clucth fork.

When we re-did dads car; we used the brace for the shocks (instead of mounting to the trunk floorpan) and the tubular X-member for the trans. Both were from Gary Pronesti; although I imagine Classic Industries, etc etc has them.