Re: Ultramatic - 1950 Transmission Fluid

Posted by Mike On 2011/12/9 10:10:34

I ran the trickshift before and after the rebuild, i doubt any fluid short of something that's not even ATF would cause those issues.

Did they replace the direct drive disc in the converter? When mine was restored 15+ years ago, they did seals and gaskets but no internal parts. Finally, after overheating it on a trip 3+ hours from home and pushing the car to the limit, i took the trans down for rebuild because of internal pressure leaks, and found the direct drive clutch disc was coming apart. I know it was my fault from the abuse, and angrily pushing the car with a pretty high temp gauge at 70+ mph with the hot radiator heating the trans fluid was not a good idea.


Anyway, had it rebuilt buy a guy here in Ohio who had done a few a LONG time ago. I bought the parts, when there was a machining issue i found the directions for the fix, and he did everything. I did the converter and direct drive disc myself.

Anyways, parts was like $500 with the NOS direct drive disc from someone here. Rest of the parts were from kanter (bushings, clutch discs, etc). I can't quote his price as we did some horse trading with my computer business, but i'd venture a guess that a rebuild with parts would be in the 1200-1500 area? Not really that bad. Of course Ross is the go to guy, but there are cheaper options.

Also, i TOTALLY bent my rods removing my motor and tranny. I fixed them as best i could, and connected them up and adjusted them per ross's directions (very easy) and the tranny has been perfect.

As a side note, when done using modern parts, your soft parts are essentially all the same material as GM...and trickshift hasn't been eating up GM trannys that i've heard of. If yours was recently rebuild correctly, it should have GM linings and modern seals.

All i wanted was to drive my packard on my wedding day. Didn't make it. And then to bring my little girl home when she was born. Didn't make it. Oh well, maybe it'll take her to prom? With dad chauffeuring so that no handsy sonfabitch tries anything?

Lastly, there is a place that sells a kit to put a GM tranny behind a straight eight, it's about 1K for the kit. With your experience, you could make it fit if there's x-member issues, and you're already 12 volt if you want to use a computer. I'd look at a 700r4 or electronic variant, and make use of a lockup converter. Why go with a 727 when it will be more work and a little more money, but you could have lockup and OD?