I had a thought, wondering if there might be a "skinny" tranny mount out there so I did a bit of "Google Research", which some people seem to think is a waste of time, but there's an abundance of really, really good information available on the WWW. You just have to be smart enough to disregard the drivel and focus on the gems.

It looks like a stock, rubber tranny mount may be as much as 1/2" shorter than the expensive Poly mount that the PO had in the stash of parts that I got in the package. I'll visit with my local NAPA guy with tranny mount in hand, and see what we can find. If I can shave 1/2" with the mount, then I might consider chopping the plate off of the crossmember and dropping it down another 12" to inch which will get things centered a bit better up and down without much work. Moroso makes a solid steel mount, but I'm not sure of the dimensions. I suppose that I could make a mount out of a piece of square tube and a couple of nuts, but it would transmit any vibrations right into the frame, probably not a good idea for a street car.

I won't be able to mess with it again until at least Tuesday - got a milestone HS class reunion this weekend, so we'll be out of pocket for a while.