In Spring of '97 I came across a Borg Warner T5 from an '84 Camaro at a swap meet in Portland, and decided to retrofit it into my truck.  Knowing that they put these in S-10's, I assumed that the swap would be easy.  The owner had told me that it came out of a V8 car, so I assumed that it must be the World Class variety.  I only verified recently that it was not the WC tranny, which was one of the prime reasons that I replaced it in 2001.

    The installation went fairly smootly, with only a couple of problems.  The T5 had the same mount pattern as my old 4 Speed, so it did bolt right up.  The only thing I had to change was the clutch disc, as this one had a 26 spline input shaft and my truck used a 10 spline shaft.  For the rear mount, my 4 speed was supported solely off the bellhousing.  Since the T5 was designed to have a rear mount, I decided to get rid of the Bellhousing mounts, and use the normal Chevy 3 point mount design.  To do this, all I had to do was install a crossmember off a automatic '65 chevy truck, which I found in a local junkyard.  The old crossmember supported only the parking brake, and didn't have provisions for the tranny.  It was riveted in, so I had to remove the rivets to get the old one out, then drill new holes for the new crossmember, as it needed to be moved back about 3 inches.  This meant that I had to modify the emergency brake cable mounts slightly, but nothing major.  I also had to cut a hole in the floor for the new shifter to come through.  Next I had to bend the shifter slightly to keep it from hitting the seat.

    To make the T5 fit in the truck, I did have to move the shifter forward, by using a tailshaft housing and shifter from a S-10.  This bolts right up, but the S-10 and Camaro speedometer gears do not line up.  This meant that there was no way to hook up my speedometer with the T5 installed.  If I had been determined, I could have machined the housing to move the speedo gear, but that would have also required some welding.  I talked to a local machine shop about doing this, but they wouldn't do it for liability reasons.  Since my speedometer didn't work anyway, I decided to ignore the problem, and put a tach in my truck to get an idea of how fast I was going.  Since I never received a ticket in the truck, this solution seemed to have worked.

    The last modification was a new driveshaft.  The stock '65 unit bolted to the tranny, but the T5 required a slip yoke.  The solution was pretty simple, I just bought a driveshaft off a El Camino. and had it shortened.

Costs:

Item                                                Cost                        Vendor

Tranny:                                            $400                    Swap meet

Driveshaft, shortened                    $150                    Six States

Clutch                                              $100                    NAPA

S-10 shifter and housing                $25                    Tranny shop