Lining Up Transmission Crossmember

‘72/304/T15. Now that I have the engine on the chassis, working on mounting the bell housing and transmission. They were out of the Jeep when I got it so I don’t know exactly which holes in the frame the crossmember mounted to originally as there are four on each side of varying spacing. Two sets of the holes match up with the cross member holes on each side but they are no lining up. As I measure back where the tran mount and torque mount would be, only one hole on the cross member (the oblong slot in the middle on each side) seems to match the spacing where it would have been. Net result would be only one bolt on each side holding up the cross member. Does that sound right? I would think it would have been two on each side but maybe that was for the 6 cylinder motors with different lengths. I don’t have a skid plate so I don’t know if that came into play here or not. Always fun recreating something you didn’t get to see originally.

 

I found this pic. It is behind a 6 cylinder. Maybe I just need to manipulate it some more to see if I can get it to line up like the one in the pic. May be the angle my engine is sitting still attached the the hoist.

 

I'd certainly put the engine on its mounts, if it's not. With the trans hanging, it should be easy to put the towers and insulators in the right place.

The picture in the parts book shows the same mount for the six and V8 in those years. If everything lines up, it should not make any difference whether the mount is on the transfer case or on the cross member. However, I would bolt the mount to the transfer case first. There's no question where that should be, and it's rigidly mounted. Then I'd hold the transmission up so I could install the cross member. The mount should then set down on center of the cross member where it can be bolted solid.

The mount only has a single row of bolts, left to right. The cross member at the frame must have four bolts through it, as in the picture.

 

Maybe this will help?

 

74 frame...assume it would be same. I can take more pics if you need some, on different angles. My tub is not on the frame yet. I took hundreds of pics as I tore down the jeep, and rebuilt. Used them because I knew I would forget how things went back together. My mount is on the two front holes of the four on the frame rails. One thing I do recall, my cross member has a "Front" and a "Back". The holes on the cross member were not lining up on tranny mount. Then I looked at my pics before tear down, noticed a small 'curve' in cross member, and flipped the mount 180. It then all lined up.

 

I found some shims. Figured out they are for the trans crossmember. I also have to flip the crossmember 180*.

 

yeah that's right two thin shims on each side. Forgot about those.