I bought a rare and hard to find MY6 overdrive manual transmission from spidereyes455 (thanks again Jim!) and I planned on hanging it behind my 1976 Pontiac 455. This is the GM version of the Mopar Hemi transmission that was configured for overdrive. The front bearing retainer was cracked and eventually broke when I clumsily dropped it, so it had to be replaced. Worse, the stock retainer was the size of the Chevy truck bell housing. This retainer is slightly larger than the retainer hole on the BOP car bell housing I am using. Months of searching for a new retainer was fruitless. Then I contacted Jamie Passon of Passon Performance. He explained that the stock retainer was famous for cracking, totally unavailable, and the answer was a billet steel retainer. The billet price was insane but he scrounged around the shop and came up with an older run of the same part and the cost was much better. Once I got it I had to get it machined to fit the BOP bell housing. I took the billet retainer, a stock Saginaw retainer for comparison, and a BOP bell housing for fitment, out to Bob at Ace Crankshaft in Deer Park NY. He machined the retainer to the exact size needed for the BOP bell housing. He even matched the chamfer on the leading edge to ease insertion. A perfect job of machining. Now I can bolt the retainer on the MY6 and mount it to the BOP housing on the 455. Progress!! The pics are of the three retainers and the finished product. Mopar on left, Saginaw on right, billet in the hole.
