Threaded bottom mounting holes sm465

[7900_Blazer]

‘75 blazer purchased with a cracked bell housing and one bolt hole ‘ear’ broken off the sm465. Sourced a used solid aluminum bell housing and a good sm465 tranny.

The problem is the bottom two mounting holes in the sm465 are threaded... I have the cast iron bell housing that came with the good sm465 but it does not have a post on the drivers side to mount the clutch linkage.

Should I simply drill out the bottom two bolt holes in the sm465 so that I can bolt into the aluminum bell housing?

If not, how do I mount the clutch linkage with no ‘post’ on the drivers side of the cast iron bell housing..?

Any experience in ‘fixing’ this?

 

[7900_Blazer]

I ended up drilling out the bottom holes in the SM465 to match the top holes. Anyone that has done this though, would probably have told me that I'll also need to use a Dremel tool to take off enough material around the bolt heads - enough to get a wrench or socket on the bolt.

I ended up taking off about 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch of cast-iron in and around the 'ears' enough to barely fit a socket and/or box-end wrench on the bolt head...

Anyone have any worries about the compromising the structural integrity of those bolt 'ears'?

I'll take some pics to show what I did.

 

[Bextreme04]

I ended up drilling out the bottom holes in the SM465 to match the top holes. Anyone that has done this though, would probably have told me that I'll also need to use a Dremel tool to take off enough material around the bolt heads - enough to get a wrench or socket on the bolt.

I ended up taking off about 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch of cast-iron in and around the 'ears' enough to barely fit a socket and/or box-end wrench on the bolt head...

Anyone have any worries about the compromising the structural integrity of those bolt 'ears'?

I'll take some pics to show what I did.

I'd probably just use a round headed allen socket cap screw instead, rather than a hex head if there isn't enough room to get around the hex head with a socket. If you don't have room on top of the bolt to get an allen key in it, then nevermind.