Gary its me again and Im a bit more awake now , If your bell looks like a house , in other words if you stand behind the engine and look you should see 6 bolts if its a V8 or 230 , 250 ,292 bell . their will be two bolts on the sides of the bell one straight up from the other , then the bell turns inward in an almost straight line upward to a point in the center , kinda looks like the end of a house . their will be a bolt on either side of the peak half way to the top . If its a 235 or 261 bell , the bell will look round , the flywheel will load from the bottom . the bell if I remember correctly has 4 big bolts on the flywheel side holding it to the block and two on the outside . All Chevrolet V8 engines from a 265 in 55 to a 454 have the house pattern on the rear of the block , as well as the 230 ,250, 292 inline six , so does a 229 and a 4.3 liter v6 and a rare few 4cy nova engines based on a 250 six missing 2 cylinders . there are a few late 70s early 80s 4cy with this pattern , the pontiac iron duke 151 is one of these . I know the big chevrolet 6 of the fifties has a bastard bell housing and it wont interchange with even a 265 or 283 from the fifties . If you have the house 6 bolt pattern , you have the later model 230 six engine . I have never seen a big 235 or 261 with that pattern . My 59 has the big six and it is the bastard bell . I talked to a friend that has restored these trucks , he advises the same I do . Find a fully syncronised 3 speed , use the V8 bell from a 64 to 72 chevrolet pickup and linkage to the column , He said you may have to make a slight modification because some 58 59 crossmembers have a different mounting location ,, the round bell has a slightly different angle on the mounts . I always used a camaro crossmember with a aluminum bell but if you want it to look stock you may have to try the option I mentioned . Im no expert on keeping it like origional , but I know the diff in the engines , been there and done it several times .
