OLM8

found the one i had
this is a single rail bell housing
 

 
 
you may also need to do something like this for the gearbox mount

Was driving my Wags the other day towing a fucking trailer of course and something went clunk underneath and the clutch went really heavy, and barely worked. Got it home and had a look, clutch fork pivot had snapped its rivets off and was sitting there flopping around still clipped to the fork. Found that my slave is now fucked too. This is after i replaced the master about a month ago after it let go in traffic on a 36 degree day, mrs and kids in the car on the way to the beach.
 
Fuck.
 
Anyway so my T5 conversion has been fast-tracked cause i need the wags for family duties, getting to work, waking up the neighbours, etc.
 
Made up a bolt-on bracket to mount the slave onto (my bellhousing is an a ancient mechanical type with no slave mount holes)
 
Been slowly getting bits together lately:
 
New slave $50
Sunbury 11" diaphragm clutch kit $299
Chucked the flywheel on the lathe and shaved it down to 10.5 kg from 13.1
Got it skimmed $40
New pilot $22
Bolted the pivot in where the rivets broke
 
Ok so today it all went in... It was a conga-line of fuckups....
 
First, had to get my little bloke from school after just 45 min because he was playing up.
 
Tried to do the grease behind the pilot bearing trick, trying to knock it out, couldn't find a good sized drift to put in, used a bolt and some electrical tape, ended up just spraying grease all over my face. Then tried to slide-hammer it out of the crank and the needle roller bit came out and left the outer casing in there. Fuck. Had to drill out each side of it to collapse it and pull out the pieces. They're soft as shit, must be grey iron or something. Even dinged the new one knocking it in with a copper hammer.
 
Couldn't get the petrol compressor running right, had to fuck around with the carby. Needed it to run the rattle gun to do up the flywheel bolts. Another 1/2 hour gone.
 
Had to cut the floor a bit to clear the T5 shifter. Rough as guts job, done with a 9" cutter disc.
 
Haven't built my shed yet, so working out in the open in 40 degree heat, rolling around on a concrete slab with leaves and twigs everywhere, grease and shit in my hair, tools all over the place not organised, all too hot to touch in the sun.
 
Stripped a crossmember bolt
 
Snapped the grease nipple off the throw-out bearing, eventually found another one. Another 1/2 hour wasted.
 
Little bloke decided while i was under the car, that he wanted hugs with daddy. Thanks mate, perfect timing.
 
And no matter how much you drain a manual box, you always get that bit of oil spill out the back when you tip it up. On you, of course.
 
Did i mention it was fucking hot?
 
Anyway phone camera isn't working so no pics for future reference (yet).

Thanks for that much appreciated


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@Thom and @gerg might be familiar with the top loader bell ? i am not, but i did hear the 3 speed bell is suited to the T5 with (from 6cyl either XF or up to EL  6cly depending on ratios wanted or strength EB onwards is stronger)

single rail can also be done fairly easy .. there's a thread on here somewhere.
but the basics are, machine the T5 nose diameter to suit the single rail hole, and drill new holes in the bell housing to suit and also in the gearbox face.
 
here's a thread actually, 
http://www.ozfalcon.com.au/index.php?/topic/3399-the-t5-conversion-thread/

My single rail is in a 3 speed xb housing. Open up the center hole with some gentle grinding and only needs one hole redrilled. Top rh by memory.

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I think of all the bellhousings, those 3 speed ones are the best to mod because the machined mounting face drops down low enough to cover many gearbox bolt patterns. The single rail ones aren't suitable for that, especially when going to a T5. Although with that 3 speed, the input shaft bearing retainer is (I think) smaller in diameter, meaning either the hole in the 3sp bellhousing will have to be bored to suit the SR or the SR input retainer has to be machined down to suit (if it's possible to do that without hitting the bolt holes) . My memory is fuzzy on this so check all these bits first.

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The 3 speed has a different bolt pattern again (so I believe). You will need a 6 cyl to single rail hydraulic bell. They are probably getting a bit hard to find but not impossible.

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this is great thread on the barra swap in XE falcon
 
theres a seller on ebay that has stand alone wiring harness and PATS removed computers, it hink for about $750, has like 6 wires to connect.....
 
 

Thanks for all the info guys

I haven’t done anything more at this stage.

It’s funky but sort of old school fun on the column and there’s not many unmolested ones left.

See what happens down the track.


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Thanks for all the info guys

I haven’t done anything more at this stage.

It’s funky but sort of old school fun on the column and there’s not many unmolested ones left.

See what happens down the track.


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never buy dellow. they machined my bellhousing wrong and cost me 2k to fix a fuck up and refused to fix it 

want me advise go a t5 you wont regret it espc with 3.45 in the diff 

Beware of the Ultra King brand shock absorber's for our x-series falcons.
There are multiple reports, of them randomly shearing off the lower mounting plate -
(dodgy manufacturing?)
 

 

Hi all,
I’m new to this place it’s only my second ever post.
 
I’ve got a XY , 6cyl 250 pre cross flow car, that’s 3 speed column manual,bench seat.
 
I’m looking for info and tips on converting it to a 4 speed single rail.
 
I’ve got some questions...
 
Is it worthwhile doing?
 
Will it drive better?
 
My hydro clutch and fork is on the passenger side, can I keep my existing bell housing and all internals , clutch and flywheel etc?
 
Do I need to mod the tailshaft length?
 
Gear lever clearance near the bench seat all ok?
 
Speedo drive/cable mods?
 
Other than the box , what other parts do I need?
 
Any info or tips would be appreciated.
 
If anyone’s got a good single rail box for sale ,I heard the Cortina box is better ? please pm me.
 
Happy to pay freight also.
 
Thank you
 
OLM8
 
PS it’s just a cruiser, patina paint, original car, nothing fancy.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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Like to thanks everyone’s input and olm8 for photo’s 

My car however at some stage had a really old Smiths Beehive heater with fan , fitted to the car, probably because the original heater core leaked which was very common.

It works great and is toasty warm it’s still got the old bakerlite hi/low switch.

Cheers


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Cool.  Learning every day, thanks for that.

Maybe the only XY POV packs like mine and other early XY’s got the blow through heater from the XW? or even the XT?

Most of them got the big box that you would normally think of for a xy heater.

I’m no expert.




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learning stuff all the time. 
COOL(or warm, with heater turned on)

My car however at some stage had a really old Smiths Beehive heater with fan , fitted to the car, probably because the original heater core leaked which was very common.

It works great and is toasty warm it’s still got the old bakerlite hi/low switch.

Cheers


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wonder if that's aftermarket, someone's bodged one on from something else.
haven't seen anything like that before, but haven't really worked on PRE XA though

Mate this one's a deusie...

As I was reading each thing you tried, I would think of another thing and you'd already tried that too.

You say "breaking down" as if it feels like coil breakdown.

Maybe instead of continuing throwing nice expensive parts at it, you could just book a bit of dyno time with someone who knows carbies. You can load up the engine and watch what the ignition is doing on an oscilloscope and/or timing light, also AFRs will tell how the carby is tuned. Often, carby problems are ignition problems.

Being a mechanic myself, am no fan of paying someone else to spin spanners on my old jalopies, but sometimes you just need someone with the right gear to get to the heart of the matter.

How have you got the MSD hooked up? They want a direct supply to and from the battery, not from your key switch. At peak output, they do draw quite a few amps. Plug gaps aren't anywhere near as fussy with MSD. It generally fires them no matter how fouled or worn they are, so you can pretty much rule that issue out.

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you need an xf t5 bellhousing, it will bolt straight on to your 250, but they are cable clutch, chevy s10 has the shifter further forward than any of the other t5's

Thanks !

I got in touch with Speco in Melbourne about a week ago, most all the parts to recondition mine are still available.

About the only thing they don’t do is the main mechanism which I already have.

I will get some pricing on it all.

Cheers



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Yeah, had one. Worked well, but nowadays the linkages and pivots would be flogged out. Mine was relatively new, (looooong time ago now) and gave no trouble. Early holden, HG I think.....
If it's all good and tight, no reason why it would give you grief, it's a simple swap, and lots more cool factor.  😎