SM465 trans crossmember

So I finally got everything together and bolted to the engine in my jeep. Now I'm working on making a crossmember work, with the sm465 at roughly the same height as the T90 was before (The fenderwell headers and mufflers are in the same position as they were before comming off of the engine) the old crossmember is about 4 inches too low to meet up with the frame rail like it should.

What did you guys do for this? I'm debating between making spacers to mount it up, or just making a new crossmember all together. I can't really raise the transmission up much without also raising the engine, which is more work than i want to do.

 

I did the sm420. Moved the tranny up by cutting out the floor and making a new sheetmetal cover. Yes, it seeming like I had to cut out a lot of the floor - that trans is big! I first tried with a 1" spacer on the crossmember but that didn't work for me so I made the floor cutout larger.

Not sure what you mean by raising the engine just to raise the trans. It's more like changing the angle of the engine. In my case the engine stayed firmly attached to the motor mounts throughout the entire process. It may require some minor changes to the exhaust angles.

 

Yeah, the exhaust is the issue in raising the transmission up more, I've got the fenderwell headers with mufflers before the rear tires, and they're right up against the floorboards already. Not an extremely easy fix, especially when I'm getting the exhaust redone soon anyways, but I'll take a look at it tomorrow. Might just need to try and get ahold of a torch to bend the headers down further.

 

When I put an SM465 in my Cj5 I lowered the tranny mount attachment surface and boxed the cut out of the crosmember, maybe the picture will make more sense..

 

Four inches is a long way but all the early jeeps I have owned (V6) have had wood spacers between the frame and crossmember. Original Jeep blueprints call for them. I could not find the dimensions from the prints. AM