[jkg2101]

so, my original plan was to remove the bellhousing alignment dowels and buy some of the offset ones from RObbMC. well, it turns out these dowels are not so easy to remove. and there really is no way to get good leverage on them inside the car. I got a real nice pliers on one, then twisted it and BAM - the pliers slipped and I left my knuckle skin on one of those aluminum edges.

So, i decided to try the lakewood bellhousing dowel kit, which is what kirkham used on their posting a few years back. Unfortunately, those dowel kits require me to drill a HUGE hole through the bellhousing. The biggest drill bit I have for my press is 1/2" and it looks big. you need something like a 1" drill to make the hole, and the bellhousing is thick steel.

then I would need to hold the bellhousing in the right position while I tighten the nuts, and then weld it up in the car. Doing this with the engine in the car would be a challenge. i'm not sure I have enough knuckle skin to do it. And it would be so awesome if welding splatter got on the polished stainless heat shields too.

So, I came up with plan C. Because I mostly just have to move the bellhousing up in this case, I just enlarged the holes in the bellhousing slightly with my 1/2" drill, and put a bottle jack under the bellhousing before I tightened the bolts. I checked twice to be sure it was repeatable. Then I got good numbers. In the future, I might do what I have done in the past - I might just NOT dial-in the bellhousing. My 69 mustang has had the same toploader for more than 20 years and no trouble there. I wonder if dialing in the bellhousing is overkill for a hobbyist who puts 1000 miles a year on a car.