Iron Duke to tranny question

Looking at a '80 CJ5 for sale and it has the iron duke 4 cyl. and garbage SR4 tranny and good D300 t-case. I was wanting to make sure I am right on this swap idea. Can you simply bolt a chevy 4 speed, 465 or 420, with their factory bellhousing straight to the back of "the duke"? I know the 205 that would come with the 4 speed would be super big and heavy, but you have to take the good with the bad in that case I guess. He only wants 400 for it and I think I could make half my money back with selling the D300. Thanks for your help guys.

 

You mean the 151? IIRC it has the Chevy pattern, so you can bolt up anything that came behind a SBC or Chevy inline 6. Don't assume you're going to be able to use the 205 or even a 208 from a pickup though ... some of those adapters are verrrry long.

 

Good info, just wanted to make sure that the tranny swap would bolt up. There is not much left to the jeep so it may be a candidate for frame lengthening which would free up the needed room for the longer tranny/t-case combo.

 

My 80 CJ-5 originally had the 151 Iron Duke with a T-176 trans. The bellhousing matches the bolt pattern for the fprd T-18 as well. Most of the transmissions used by chevy should bolt up.

 

I recall Nick wrote that the SR-4/T-4/T-5/T-176/T-150 all use the same bellhousing casting, but that they are drilled differently for the different transmissions. The T-176/T-150 are Ford transmission pattern, the rest are not AFAIK.

 

Yup, that's right. The bosses are cast in the bellhousing though so all you have to do is drill and tap the holes. Some of them even have pilots started in the bellhousing where the holes need to be drilled....
The SR-4, T-4, T-5 all share a later model Ford pattern that is different from the T-150/176 pattern....Nickmil

 

My apologies, I meant ford should bolt up, not chevy. To answer your original question, any chevy bellhousing should bolt right up to the Iron Duke.