[jchav62]

My first classic was a '51. I drove it with the original 6 with a four speed for about a year until I blew the engine on the freeway. My Dad, my brothers and I installed a 350 with a th400. I left the stock suspension. We had to cut out the bellhousing crossmember and slide back the original rear tranny crossmember back. Just redrilled holes in the frame and in the crossmember to bolt up to the th400 mount. The biggest issue was the steering box. That has to be spaced out about 3"-4". There are better ways of doing it, but what I did was unbolt the box from the frame rail, notch a piece out of the inner fender, and spaced it out with a piece of 3"x5" square tubing. Drilled the tubing and bolted in back to the frame rail. The steering column and steering box are all one unit, but from inside the truck, you couldn't tell the box had been spaced out. Never had any problems. The better way to do it is using univeral steering joints. I ran ram horn manifolds. As for motor mount towers, my Dad fabbed some up out of the leaf style overload springs that I removed from the truck. They worked great with clam shell style motor mounts. The rearend was a 10 bolt out of a mid 70's Camaro. The width of those rearends are good for AD trucks. I'm sure there are a million ways of converting your truck to a V8, but this was my backyard experience. The '51 now belongs to my brother and is still running strong.