Ok, so I can't quite find the specific info I need about exactly how tight its gonna be. From what I can find I'll need to cut the support across the trans tunnel, and that's it (allegedly). My questions are- 1-How much of the tunnel support do I need to cut out? 2-Does the transition between the firewall and tunnel need any clearancing? When holding the bellhousing in there to get an idea it looked super close. The 302/T5 are bolted up and waiting to go in. Hopefully in the next few days, I'd just like to keep the trial and error fitting to a minimum. Thanks.
Had a sudden burst of motivation and dropped the drive train in. Took out more of the tunnel than necessary, but mostly because the top of it was already massacred by the previous owner and I'd rather weld in one patch panel than fill 100 holes. 71gold's crossmember worked beautifully. The only thing you'd have to do on an uncut tunnel would be to notch about 2" out of the peak of the tunnel support, and cut a hole for the shifter assembly.
I have a T5 in my 69.5 also. It is sitting behind a 69 250 out of a Mustang. I went the other route with the bell housing. I used the stock Mustang bell housing and used an adapter for the T5. That enabled me to use all the factory clutch linkage, works very well.
Adjustable Mustang cable with Mustang Steve quadrant. If the cables gives me too many issues (melts to the headers) I may switch to hydraulic.
When i put mine in i didn't have to notch anything. The only thing i did was make up a new cross member.
