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Are you also going to add power steering and power brakes?
The reason I asked that is because I was in a similar situation with our ‘37 Master coupe. My wife has a treatable autoimmune situation but it does limit her strength. She could never drive the ‘37 because the steering and brakes took so much effort as well as the clutch. We now have a ‘57 car with automatic power steering, and power brakes. She loves it!
Unless you have a personal connection to the 1940 sedan, it might be worth considering a different vehicle. In our case, even though the ‘37 had a family history we realized that she would never be able to drive it unless we did a full “rod & custom” conversion. It was a whole lot cheaper and way less effort to get a more suitable vehicle.
One other item to check is whether the ‘52 engine is from a Powerglide vehicle. That might make things a little easier.
I have no clue if there is room for a Powerglide in the ‘40 sedan. You might have to modify the front floor area.
As noted in drtyler’s post, any Chevy transmission after 1954 uses open driveshaft. I have seen posts in various forums where people discussed making some type of adapter to make the later transmission work with the enclosed driveshaft rear axle. I have never read or heard of anyone actually doing it.
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