T-5 interest

[oldopelguy]

Pictures of the Chevette T-5 as compared to the Opel bell-housing with an S10 T-5 are in this thread. This picture in particular.

The Chevette bell-housing matches up in all cases with 4 of the 6 bolts for the Opel block. The top two will need to be slotted and/or large washers used at a minimum to use them.

The Chevette T-5 has a significantly shorter tail shaft than any other T-5s, enough shorter that in order to use it with an S10 tail housing you would have to swap out shafts as well. This would result in a transmission about 2" longer then an S10 trans in total length. Most of the extra length is due to the increased length of the Chevette input shaft and depth of the bell-housing, which is close to 2" longer than the S10 unit and 3" longer than the Opel one.

T-5s had in general two mounting patterns on the front of the transmission. The first, used on the smaller 4- and 6-cylinder s-10 and Camaro transmissions is the same as most GM cars throughout the 60's and 70's. This bolt pattern is the one I had these adapters made up for. The second bolt pattern is used by v-8 camaros, Astros, Fords, and Chevettes. It is taller and narrower than the regular Chevy bolt pattern, so it allows a tiny bit more clearance width-wise with respect to the mounting ears, though the top covers are the same so the overall width is about the same. Again, see pictures in the other thread above. Fallout of this is that if you want to bolt a Ford or V-8 Camaro t-5 to an Opel all you need is the Chevette bell-housing and an appropriate clutch disc.

Along similar lines, with a couple of Chevette bell-housings as spares, my next trans adapt project will be a steel bell-housing for an Opel built to copy the Chevette one (but with Opel top holes) and set-up for a hydraulic clutch. I figure I can build a jig around and inside the Chevette bell and use it to weld an Opel front plate to either an existing steel bell-housing to to build one totally from scratch. Not sure it's really required, though, since you should be able to install the WC T-5 stuff inside the S-10 case without a lot of work if you really needed to.