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While working on the front end with my son, I took a moment to snap a few "what the...?" photos. Here are pics of the front motor mounts, and the cross member holding up the Turbo 350 trans. Note that the left front mount has a lovely galvanized lag bolt through it, and the right one has nothing! The truck was driven daily like this back in its past. I have a tubular style front motor mount cross member kit (came with the truck) to fix this problem.

The original cross member under the bell housing was removed and a cludged together member was bolted in to support the automatic transmission (the truck also came with a new tubular cross member kit for the auto). I will be building a new cross member to support the SM 420 that I acquired. The 4-speed is the later style with the angled mounts adopted in 1954, so I intend to set the block and trans in place (after installing the new front mount kit), set it to the correct angle, then fab up the new rear cross member in place.

The last photo shows a nasty surprise that reared its ugly head after my son removed the intake/exhaust manifold from the 250 motor. I can repair the crack, but at this point I don't know what other damage their may be. The motor turns over easily, so I doubt there is cylinder damage. I'll probably just look for a better motor.

Brian