[Goatracer1]

Many years ago I put a slim jim trans and 1962 389 in my 1965 GTO. To get the starter to clear the exhaust I had the nose of the starter cut off and welded it back on so the solenoid was on the bottom when the starter was installed. Worked great.

[gavin]

Good info goat I did kind of wonder if that would work I might have a go at that since it can be done.59 I'm trying to borrow a GMC starter to try I think it will work but will still require a bit of grinding.I will play around with it some more but I don't have much time at the moment.Thanks for your interest.

[d2_willys]

Gavin: I am in the process of doing the same thing, but with a dual range (single coupling hydramatic) and a Buick V6.

In my case, I am using the Buick flex plate (with ring gear) and block mount starter.

My adapter takes the BOP pattern and converts it to 55-60 Pontiac bell pattern.

What I will be doing is using a crank spacer, which carries a pilot bearing for hydramatic, and adapts to the hydramatic flywheel. So, there will be one flexplate, spacer, and hydramatic flywheel (balanced of course). Spacer carries both Buick crank patterns on one side, the other side carries dual range hydramatic flywheel.

Biggest issue is the depth of bell housing spacer, due to starter nose cannot hit the 55-60 bell housing. This depth will also govern the depth of crank spacer.

Lastly, the 13.9" flexplate needs to clear the bell housing adapter, and with that removes the possibility of the driver side bell bolt being used. But the other 5 bolts and dowels clear just fine.

Any help that you might need, please PM me.

Good luck

[d2_willys]

Gavin: I was wondering why you didn't just get a 61-64 DC hydramatic bell housing and use that? I have one from a friend in Pennsylvania. He has a 64 grand prix that had DC hydramatic. He eventually replaced the DC hydramatic with a TH400. My guess is that he used a 65 up Th400 (BOP) and used the block mount starter.