I know you've had this done for a while, but due my lack of funds to build my truck, I have plenty of time to think about (or over-complicate
) the way I'm going to do my set up. I realize that the way you did it obviously works, but I've contemplated a couple other ways and wondered if you had thought about them and maybe why you didn't or wouldn't do them.
Option 1: Take the tk4 bell-housing, and cut the side that would mount to the trans down to the length of the 435 input, and fab up a new mounting plate and weld it to the bell-housing, pretty much just making a custom bell-housing that would bolt straight up to the 4.0 and 435, with no adapters. the problems I see with this would be whether or not a person had the capabilities to weld aluminum, and making clutch linkage/hydraulics work with this.
Option 2: Use a Dodge version of the np435, or the input shaft out of one.
Novak states that the Ford input shaft sticks out 6 1/2 inches and has 10 splines, and the Dodge version sticks out 8 3/8 inches (1 7/8 inches longer), but has 23 splines. Could the Dodge shaft be cut and turned down the needed amount, and a clutch be found that could work with this setup? Or maybe the shaft turned down or re-splined to work with a ranger clutch? The bad part about doing all this is most of us lack the tools and equipment to do those things, and would have to have them done.
Having made a setup that does work, how feasible do you think these two options would be?