I was going to hijack the Tremec thread below. I mean, I really, really wanted to. But I pansied out.

I picked up one of them there '77 Granada 4-speed Top Loader overdrive transmissions on the cheap (On The Cheap is my middle name. It says so right on my birth certificate. Honest. Would I lie?). This is the trans that David Kee so affectionately calls an "imposter". Strange, it sure looks like a gearbox to me up close and all.

It came with all the Stuff to put it behind a small block, but I can't help wondering that it might be even niftier behind a slightly warmed-over 390 for non-violent use. It has a 3.29 first and a .81 4th. With a 3.70 rear, it should move effortlessly from a standstill, and have a 3.00 cruiser final drive. Should bolt up with a C5TA truck bell, yes?

Anybody do this yet? I imagine the 1-2 shift was doggy in the original 302 application, but the 390 should pull that better. The big plus here is that the shifter had a genuine 8-ball knob on it, which is not only super kool, but adds some 10 horsepower. Some times I just get lucky.

My buddy put one behind a 69 460 with a 268H cam. It was in a 71 Mustang.

He hammered it pretty hard and it did fine. Never had any real tire under it, but he also drove it harder on street tires than most too.

I wuld say the truck bell is right on too, he used a 400 truck bell which should have the same small block depth in 460-land.


---------------------------------
- 70 Fastback Mustang, 489 cid FE, TKO-600 5 speed, 3.70 9 inch
- 71 F100 shortbed 4x4, 397 cid FE, headers, Street Dominator, 280H, 5 lug Dana 60, 4 speed

That's good news. Wow, I didn't even think about a 460. I have both truck bells, too. Hmm. Nope, I think the 390 for this go around.

they don't seem to be popular, but that's a deep 1st gear
and good OD gear. if it can live behind a 460 on the street,
it should be able to live behind the average street FE.

FElony: keep us posted if you make this swap.

O put one im my 68 Ranchero 500 390 4 speed because I wanted to keep the 350 gears but drop the rev's a bit on the hyway. It worked out great and when the Tremec's came out I bought one of those as I really liked the overdrive. I cut the side of the tailshaft and brazed on an adaptor to fit the stock toploader hurst shifter on and in low I could really lite the tires up. Put 10,000.00 miles on that free trans before I sold it to a friend with a 66 Cyclone and he still beats on it. A friend up the road from me ran one in his 66 396 El Cameno and he also had no trouble until he wore it out and he drove peddle to the metal. Good luck, have fun. By the way, the new Tremec TKO 11 that I bought was a nice step up except when I tried to back it off my hoist, it fell out of reverse with a big bang because somebody in the factory forgot to machine the reverse slider and it was 3/16 "to long. I will always trust a toploader and I have worn out lots of them.

We are pleased to announce that we are currently making "genuine" imitation eight ball shifter knobs out of billet aluminum. Each ball is handcrafted in one of our 8 cnc milling machines. To place your order, please pm FeLony.



































minimum order 50 balls

I'll take a hundred, wholesale!

Finally, my dream of breaking into big business is realized! Now, all I need to do is figure out how to screw over all my future employees, substitute cheap foreign shift balls after making a reputation on domestic product, and award myself millions of dollars for driving my company into the mud.

And they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Uh, Brian, will you take a check?

I ran one of those things in my more misguided youth. I too thought the best of both worlds rather than the worst. It was strong enough though and when driving mildly and shifting at moderate RPM it was OK. Pretty much like a 3 speed.



It was in a 65 Falcon convertible with a built up 351 Dubya and 3.89 gears.



For performance the ratios really suck. Nice low first gear then the giant bog to second but that pales in comparison the the wall you hit in 3rd. First time you drive it you will pull it back out and hunt for the right gear only to discover that was it. I think it was a 3.29 first, 1.78 or lower second then 1:1 and a .8 OD.

You did not state how much horsepower in them balls............

My old 67 FB 390 Stang came with the Toploader 3 speed and the spread in it was about the same. The 67 still managed low 14's with a stock 390, the 3 speed and a 3.00 geared 9" open rear. Ran up against a built 350 Camaro one night, he had 4.11's and a 4 speed. He went thru 1st & 2nd in the time it took the 390 to pull thru 1st. I didn't blow him away, but steadily walked away and pulled him by a car length in the 1/4 mile.

With the the O.D. was fine on the 1st to 2nd shift but 2nd to 3rd was brutal. 4th was great though, the best cruising car I ever had.


53 F100, Volare clip, 4 wheel disc 390-wide ratio toploader

As I recall, we discussed the "outstanding" attributes of this "legendary" transmission some time ago...

http://www.network54.com/Forum/74182/thread/1145375383/Toploader+with+O-D+--->

There was a speed shop, here in my part of the world, that - shall we say - "scooped" a pallet load of these "wonders," all brand new or N.O.S. They were goin' out the door for about $400 at the time (1978). Despite my recommendation against it, a guy I knew brought me one, along with his 2.78 box, and wanted me to transfer the guts from the O/D into his old Toploader case and extension housing, as he wanted to use his original Hurst shifter.

Well, after about four days, buyer's remorse set in and he brought the car back wanting me to replace the original parts back into his transmission case. Yeah, I guess it's a bit like having a sex-change operation, and then deciding the next day that maybe it wasn't such a good idea, after all.

Tom

Although the "Orion" 3 speed with OD MAY be OK for mild cruising applications, the RPM drops between gears are just too brutal for any decent performance use. I remember taking TomP`s 351W Falcon convert for a Blast down a local industrial "testing facility" years ago, after he was complaining about how bad the Granada "4 speed" in the Falcon sucked. I thought that it couldn`t be THAT bad. Well, it was. I took the thing almost to valve float in 1rst gear, banged 2nd, and the car just fell on it`s face, as the tach took a nose dive.3rd was more of the same. To it`s credit, that trans did take a lot of abuse from Tom,and didn`t break, but then neither would a NP435 or T18 truck 4 speed, and they wouldn`t make a very good performance choice either. I used to own a 1976 Plymouth Volare Road Runner with a warmed over factory 318 (headers, 600 Holley DP on an Edelbrock intake, and a mild hyd. cam) with Chryslers version of a OD "4 speed" with similar ratios. The results were the same, it pulled fine thru 1rst, but the gear drops were nasty. For putting around, or low gear acceleration it was fine, for performance use, forget it.

428 powered Fairmont drag car, Best ET:10.03@132.11MPH, best 60 ft: 1.29
59 Meteor 2 dr. sedan 332, Ford O Matic
74 F350 ramp truck 390 4speed

The target vehicle is a '69 Ranchero 500 that currently has its original 351-2V and FMX. It will occasionally have loads of whatever in back, hence the first gear idea.

Proposed engine is a grunter 390. 9:1, XE256H cam, small valve C8 heads, GT exhaust manifolds, Performer intake, 600 Holley, and 40 lb flywheel. I'm thinking this combo would do fine with rpm drops.

...I went through 3 of those aluminum pieces-of-shit behind a 300 six in my '82 F100. All in 100K miles. Say NO to SROD!

I saw your same comment about this in the referenced thread from 2006. I assure you, in both instances, the trans in question is a Top Loader.

hence the acronym SROD which stands for single rod over-drive. Granada O/D is T/L based, cast iron cased with side linkage, at least that what Ford told us when I worked a Ford back in the late '70's early '80's. Ford did to T/L as Chrysler did to BB 4-spd and it became the A-833 O/D trans. Both tough as nails and both can be reconfigured back to 1:1 final drive.

all over with stuff in it. Its got 275,000 miles and works fine (he did change the shift linkage to a Hurst at about 75,000 miles... but he says the 3 gear goes most places and OD is nice on the HWY.

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1967 FE 390GT engine: 416 CID 233/238* @ 0.050 Solid Lifter w/ 4 spd TL.
1968 GT/CS Mustang. 289/c4
1995 Mercedes e320 I6 DOHC, 216 HP wagon.
2003 Tundra SR5, 4.7 DOHC, 4x4.
Another Galaxie (one day.)

Oh and a Bicycle - daily driver to save gas for the 'F'un 'E'xcursions.