Re: Transmission Swap

Posted by HH56 On 2017/4/12 15:16:55

The purists will vote for the Ultramatic rebuild but since you are overseas I would wonder if you could find anyone there to do the job. There are very few qualified Ultramatic people left even over here. Letting someone work on it who is unfamiliar with how the units operate and their specific needs and quirks is asking for problems.

Before deciding which conversion to go with make sure the TorqueFlite conversion kit is still available. Last I heard it was made by Sierra Grove Packards and IIRC, a poster said the shop had closed along with production of the kit. Maybe someone will know the status for sure.

I believe the TorqueFlite used for the conversion was lever operated and out of late 60s-early 70s Chryslers. The push button Chrysler unit was mechanical or rather, cable operated instead of being electric like the Packard buttons. The Chrysler buttons moved a cam arrangement which pulled or pushed a flexible cable to work the valve in the transmission instead of having a motor do it. I believe a second cable was operated by the park button to move the park pawl into engagement.

The Bendtsen kit for the GM 700R4 conversion is what most seem to be doing now and as far as I know there is currently no way of using the push button unit after the conversion. Not saying it is impossible -- it is just that no one has studied the issues and figured out the pieces needed to make the actuator mount and work the different GM shift layout.