Grind a half a hole ...lol...into 2 pieces of steel 1/4 plate and use small file or dremel cut off wheel to make the spline on both halves. Heat nail with spitfire torch or OA. Put two half together and pound with ball ping ( a Newfie term)

I bet this is what you have probably tried already. If it works quench in oil to add some temper!

Local tranny shops don't even pick up the phone when I call. Closest scrap yard with anything of that era is south of the border. What I've done is make something akin to what we used as concrete anchors before tapcon became the norm. I put a nail between a couple of hard octagonal rods and hammered a flat onto it. Not much, but it doesn't need a lot of purchase. The important thing is to not weaken the nail in any way that a failure will leave a piece irretrievable. It'll be a couple of days before I can try it in the trans, so I'm going to keep looking for the real thing.

Professur wrote:

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...It'll be a couple of days before I can try it in the trans, so I'm going to keep looking for the real thing.

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 A posse ad esse.

Knurling ... exactly. I actually managed to square it .. and it fits perfectly, and holds perfectly. Well .. she's all buttoned up and ready for me to try and install tonight. what's really going to make me cry is ... 4 gallons of transmission fluid to fill this damn thing. Flammin' stuff isn't cheap. It's going to totally suck if this doesn't work perfectly and I have to drain it all back out again.

Well .. she's physically back in. Took all of sunday. Really need to recruit a friend for this. Couldn't get it under the car on the jack ... had to slide it on a board under, then try to lift it onto the jack in the tunnel. Then had to put the torque converter on (full) with it on the jack ... then ease it into place ... fouling on everything possible .. then pull it back because with all the fussing, the TC had slipped and was now binding ... then try to remember which cooler line goes where ... then deal with the neighbourhood cat that saw me under there and decided to see what I was doing (I didn't mind the company, but when the cat decides to have a staring contest with me while I'm trying to tighten a bolt ...) .. and then the weather turned and the wind picked up. Bad enough having rust and crap falling on my face, but then to have it blowing in from the sides too... I packed it in.

Still have to do: TV cable, dipstick, crossmember, driveshaft, driveshaft hoop .. and a whole lot of praying. .. Oh .. and fill the transmission too.

It kept binding the torque converter. The original failure was the 2nd gear belt broke, and took the drum bushings with it. Quickest fix was a 'scrap' part from a distributor in Drummondville. While I was doing it, I replaced the turbine shaft. The old one was ok, but it was a bit beaten up. The replacement had a different end, but there were 3 different ends (according to the idiot manual) so I figured it was ok (Drummondville actually confirmed it). Turned out ... it wasn't. Had to rip back into it and put the old one back (getting pretty good at this) .. suddenly it all fits. Then had to deal with Canadian Tire's high quality work ... instead of routing the replacement brake lines along the old ones, they had it run right where the cross member goes ... and it's a lot thicker when unbolted (rubber). Took a while to figure out how to get that back in ...
All in all ... the toughest thing was cleaning it ... I went through a gallon of degreaser, hours of cleaning. If I'd just taken the parts to a shop and had it hot tanked I'd have been well ahead. The rebuild itself was nothing to fear. The biggest trouble was that the car was on ramps in a worn out asphalt driveway. No room to work, and movement in any direction meant risking leaving a layer of skin behind. That and .. the previous owner had it shot with oil every year as rust proofing . Didn't bloody work, but it sure left a disgusting mess to work on. Right now .. everything is finally back where it belongs .. still have to add fluid and replace the battery. Barring yet another delay, tomorrow should be the big day.

It's all back together, and in the car .. but when I went to run some tests with the car on stands .. I blew out a brake line. Inspection of the damage lead me to decide to redo all the brake lines for safety. Since then, I've destroyed one Princess Auto flaring tool... and since the closest PA is 3hrs away (the one I bought it at was en route to detroit) I've not had the chance to replace it yet.