Re: Manual versus Automatic (ULTRAmatic), post-war

Posted by HH56 On 2015/6/16 11:43:11

It's been done but IMO, to have it look and fit properly you would need a comparable 23rd series donor car or some ingenuity and fabrication. The pre 51 23rd series Ultramatic install was a first year so that Ultra is kind of unique to that series and they were still learning.

51-4 installs are somewhat different because of the new body and frame and changes to the unit as far as cooling plus some linkage changes for less complexity. There are lots of pieces that would have to change so a donor car would help immensely. If you swap a later unit then you would need to make some of the later components fit into the earlier space or configuration.

Once you get the Ultra in then you also have to think about prop shaft and rear axles which are also different from a standard trans and even from model to model different.