I had the same issue when I converted my wife’s 78 vette to a 5 speed. The fork ball was too long and I couldn’t even button up the bellhousing without major interference. Did some research and the shorter ball was the cure. Always something with these old cars?

 

When I was experiencing trans to engine misalignment (corrected with offset block to bellhousing dowels) I purchased an aftermarket '621' bellhousing that looked very nice, except that the holes for the block dowels were .020 too large. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

I bought a nice used aluminum bell housing a couple years ago for my 396 L78 engine build and the ball stud is really stuck in there! Looks fine though, and I might just leave it because I have a new repop bell housing with a new ball stud, but I prefer running an original GM part! 👍

 

Heat is your friend ! Use a mapp gas cylinder and heat the aluminum around the stud. If that doesn't remove it, let it cool and heat just the stud cherry red or as hot as possible.
Let it cool and try to remove it. Heat the stud again if that fails. It should come out after a couple of cycles.

 

I agree with that. And the lousy Asian parts we get now days in another pet peeve.

 

There are a lot of variants in these cars we drive, You never know how put the wrong part in the car before you got.
Doug