Welcome to the forum,

As I've mentioned to others, take the time to dissect this website for the wealth of information that's here. You'll have to have a lot of that info to even do the swap anway so it's best to arm yourself with it ahead of time.

There's many different types of project builds described here and guys have told exactly what it took, what worked, what didn't. Also look at the Tech Stickie put up by BobS for the wealth of information there. The single most important factor of all with a diesel install is gears, gears, gears, the more the better and the right final drive ratio!

 

hunt down a F150 that had the Ford 300 gasser, damn near bolt in

 

Ok!

Any particular year? I see them from early 80's to like '96. I'm assuming the earlier 80's vintage would be best?

Bolt it in to the existing tranny in the truck? So I could do the 4x4 route?

Would I need a different bell housing adapter?

Thank you very much for the input!

 

Your sm465 is a GM muncie trans so your flywheel housing has a GM bolt pattern. You would need a Ford bolt pattern flywheel housing and most likely flywheel too to mate easily to the stock F150 trans.

 

What about an f250 w/ the 300 I6?

 

Should work just fine

 

You should find a Toyota pickup or Tacoma, there's only a few of them with 4BTs.

 

I'm assuming it's not an easy bolt in?

 

Maybe a kit containing motor mounts, adapter plate, flywheel?

 

i know there is motor mounts for the 3.9 int he f150 not sure about the rest tho

 

Sorry But being the old fart here .. I'm 63 SO I say you've bought a chevy set up go get a Cheby.. Or I rather have a FORD set up so you''ll need to sell your chevy adapter back stuff and buy a Ford set up so you can bolt up to a ford bell housing .. You need to do more research. Sorry we don;t really know where your.. LOVES REST.. HOW YOU want to drive it .. So give your purchase a little time to soak in.
... I'd love to have another 4BT .. I put it in an old Studerbaker Pick up . Then you could use all the items you have..

 

im also an old fart (73) and i agree with pappit. you got chevy stuff finda short box 2 whl p.u.

my dd is a 95 ford lightning w/89 4bd1t isuzu,e4od,3.55 gear.great fun and 25-27 mpg

 

Ok, so my muncie or chevy adapter will bolt up to what common p.u. chevy tranny?

 

No matter what route you follow there is going to be a certain amount of fabrication involved. No real pure bolt in applications. Usually the motor mounts are the primary item. The SM465 transmission came in a wide variety of GM trucks from pickups to dump trucks. You could use what you have in a GM truck that had the SM465 in it originally. Just have to make engine mounts. The one drawback is the lack of overdrive.

If you could find an 87-97 Ford F250 with the ZF 5 speed and the small block V8, that would be a fairly easy install. You would need to swap your Chevy adapter/flywheel set up for a small block Ford set up. This would bolt directly to the transmisson. Still would have to fab the motor mounts.

We all wish there were kits to bolt the 4bt into any vehicle. Unforturnately there isn't. By the way WELCOME to the forum.

 

I think papitt is right.It has Chevrolet adapter,flywheel,transmission,etc. so stay with GM. True a Ford setup from bread vans (Wonder Bread) is virtually a bolt in proposition into a mid to late 80's Ford pickup ( that is correctly configured) but that is not what you have. Like JimmieD said read the stickies and previous threads.

 

Ok, thanks for all the input everyone!

Called one of the swap kit sites and a salesmen was very knowledgeable. He explained that I have the "Cummins SAE industrial" bell housing adapter. This adapter will only bolt to older bulletproof Ag and industrial apps with no overdrive.

Sounds like the easiest and least expensive route for my setup is dropping the entire eng/trans combo into say and f150. Then experimenting with rear gears/tires to find the optimum highway friendly(mpg) combo.

He even talked about 4x4 with a divorced transfer case.

The parts needed to adapt a 4bt to certain trannies looks like it can get pricey! And, if you turn the power up, It's sounds questionable on if they can take the torque. At least the Muncie has a rep of being "Bulletproof".

The only obstacle then would be the clutch pedal...Not sure on that.

 

Ok, thanks for all the input everyone!

Called one of the swap kit sites and a salesmen was very knowledgeable. He explained that I have the "Cummins SAE industrial" bell housing adapter. This adapter will only bolt to older bulletproof Ag and industrial apps with no overdrive.

I for one have NEVER seen a GM SM465 behind a 4BT in any stepvan that incorporated an industrial SAE housing!
Look through http://www.4btswaps.com/forum/showthread.php?t=841 <=GM & Ford stepvan trans info & identification and see if it matches what you have.

 

Look in the classifieds on this forum there are some adapters for sale there. You might want to price things just to find what you are looking at.

 

If I found a jeep or a K2500/K3500 with a SM465 already in it...Bolt the 4bt to the existing SM465. Then, it would just be a matter of the crossmember/motor mounts?

 

yep and the cooling/fuel system

 

BobS

"I for one have NEVER seen a GM SM465 behind a 4BT in any stepvan that incorporated an industrial SAE housing!
Look through <=GM & Ford stepvan trans info & identification and see if it matches what you have."

Yup... it's the one with the offset point.

 

Yes I too picked up on that Industrial housing and the SM465 .. I dough that is what he has..
.. Tim G. Look in the classified ads here.. see some pictures of the different kinds of housings that we all use.. Search a little more before you spend a load and still don't have what you need.
... I think I looked and tried to search .. for over a year and I still have plenty of questions.. And I worked for a dodge dealership fro about 7 years ..and about all we did was work on 6BT and then got into the 24 V.

 

How about a CJ5 or 7 Jeep? There's lots of tech support for doing this conversion. I can't think of anything cooler.

 

Yep, and the jeeps wid 4bt's seem to bring the highest resale value. Jmo

 

Dodge Ramcharger.