[OrrieG]

Originally Posted by Texasdeere

The big thing would be to leave most of the original cross member in place and just add the aftermarket crossmember for the tailshaft of the new tranny. That mid cross member seems to be a pain in the a$$ when using more modern transmissions. I have seen people completely remove it and some leave it in and work around it.

OrrieG has a lot of good pictures of an auto install in his build thread.

Biggest pain is the converter cover plate, you cannot physically install it in one piece with the original crossmember in place. I took two am made a two piece that overlaps. It's tucked up high so you cannot even see it is split. I elected to keep mine because I use the 4wd offroad and wanted the original frame stability between the spring shackles and bed mounts. If I was to remove it I would replace it with a bolted rectangular tube mounted between the rear spring shackles that allowed access to the converter. You also cannot move the motor forward or the trans pan will hit it. Rear trans mount is easy find any 70's truck and drill new holes in the frame rails. Linkage is easy if you go with a floor mount, a little challenging if you stick with a column mount. I used a cable set up, there is also a thread on converting 3 speed manual column to auto operation (looks real stealth!).