Bellhousing failure, BIG failure... Opinions?

[juggernaut]

Yeah, sooo... my transmission detached itself from the engine over the weekend. Friend and I were going to lunch, I gave it a 3/4" throttle rolling launch to put on a little show and heard something give out. Limped the car home, Lucky I was close, less than a mile. This is what I found.

After, digging through some threads and getting opinions this seems uncommon for a TH400. I ran the traps, engine/trans mounts are in good shape (all grade 8 fasteners), bell housing bolts were all tight in what was left of the bell housing, Torque converter bolts were tight, TC spaced out 1/4" from bottoming in the trans.

Today, I gave suspicion to my drive shaft. It has always been a tight to get the U-joints in the pinion yoke. I would guess 1/2" to 3/4" of slip yoke clearance on the output shaft. I took the tail housing off and found what might be some evidence that my drive shaft was bottoming out in the transmission. What do you all think? I don't believe the spline dimples on the output shaft are normal?


Thanks, Landon

[regal454]

Are you by chance running a solid transmission mount?

[juggernaut]

No, its a poly urethane trans mount, as well as poly engine mounts.

[BayouSS]

Looks like if the fracture did not go into the main case you could install a Ultra Bell to the existing trans case, if its still ok.