Posted by gordon maney, editor, power wagon advertiser on September 29, 1999 at 18:07:07:
In Reply to: Re: CHARLIE:QUESTION ON NP540 posted by Charlie on September 26, 1999 at 22:46:56:
i once bought a NP540 from a salvage yard run by some folks who were pretty experienced. i asked if they had any overdrive five speeds. they said yes, they had a 540.
i asked if it would fit a dodge. they said they could make it fit anything i wanted; dodge, ford, international harvester, etc.
i asked what it was out of. they said it was out of a studebaker! they explained if you have the right input shaft, front bearing retainer, and rear yoke, you can make it fit anything you want, since new process was used by almost everyone. the only difference being those parts mentioned.
i watched him change the input shaft, the front bearing retainer, and the rear yoke, as he made it fit my dodge. it bolted right up to the big block bellhousing (right side clutch arm) in my 1967 W300 powered by a 440. the big truck bellhousings tend to have multiple bolt holes to allow the use of alternative transmissions. he said he could have also sold me a spicer or a clark. the spicer being longer than the NP, and the clark longer yet. the nice thing about the W300 is that it has a pretty long intermediate driveshaft, allowing you to shorten it quite a bit if necessary to accept a longer transmission.
some salvage yard operators have overdrive NP transmissions and don't know it. the reason being that direct drive is ALWAYS where you expect 5th gear to be. they put it in fifth, where fifth is in a 5th direct transmission, and it IS direct drive. the overdrive NP transmission is direct in that position, also
overdrive (if it is an overdrive transmission) is where you expect to find 4th gear. the pattern is "backwards" in that respect. many of them do not know this, or are not thinking when they check the transmission.
you see, when you pull the lever back toward the rear of the truck, it will move the synchro forward, locking the input and output shafts together, overdrive transmission or not. the guy who tries to steal your truck with a NP overdrive 5 spd will accelerate madly in 3rd gear, then, when he shifts to what he thinks will be 4th, he will bog down real bad.... then, if he is so dumb as to try to grab 5th gear, with luck, he will hit his head on the windshield.
after the salvage yard person tells you he has no overdrive five speed NP transmissions, tell him that you want to look at his transmission pile anyway. take your piece of chalk. mark the input and output shafts, put the transmission into the 4th position (meaning where the average dummy expects 4th to be), and rotate the input shaft one turn. if the output shaft goes around more than one turn, it is an overdrive.
if you find an overdrive transmission, ask if you can buy "this old five speed here, as it might have some good parts."
NP 540's, and i think 541's and 542's, were used in some forklifts also. there is better parts availability for them than one might initially imagine, although the parts necessary to change one to overdrive are quite scarce.
there are tons of 5th direct transmissions out there. maybe someone like ray of helitool ought to think about making the gears (that are presently hard to find) allowing conversion to overdrive 5th.
i wish there was a way to edit these posts, as i have probably made a type here somewhere....