I am working on a 46 Cadillac hydramatic that has excessive end play. Someone has been in here before and I suspect that is the cause of my problems. All the thrust washers are present without excessive wear, and I still have a couple hundred thousandths end play. I am thinking a wrong part was installed sometime in the past. I have rebuilt a couple of these before without incident, but this is stumping me. The transmission was a disaster. the rear clutch drum had the snap ring groove broken off, rear servo had a broken spring spring that destroyed the bore, and the rear pump was worn out. Anybody with hydramatic experience have any suggestions?
i've had a lot of experience on hydros, mostly later ones, '54-'62. yes '62, gmc ran them that late. it sure sounds like a washer is missing somewhere. i believe all hydros shared overall dimensions.
Jim, thanks for your reply. I have the actual Cadillac manuals for this trans, and I have gone through and checked numerous times for overlooked thrust washer and snap rings. The manual tells you to hold the front unit forward with a screwdriver while checking endplay-what keeps it forward during operation? If you push the front unit rearward you have no end play. This excessive movement is what made me think a wrong part was inatalled previously.
I had a similar problem with a Dynaflow many years ago. Could never figure out where the discrepancy was. Finally had a machine shop make me a (spacer) washer and put it together. Worked fine. Go figure......
William, I have a '52 Cad 4-speed hydro. Unlike the '46 hydro the '52 model can be manually shifted down from 4th to 3rd gear. I'd sell it for $75. (located in Calif.-bay area). corvair2
Thank you for your offer, but I figured this out. Guess what? My fault. I have only done three of these old single coupling hydramatics, and I must have checked the end clearance while the 6 bolts holding the out put ***embly to the rear unit were installed on the previous two. These bolts need to be installed when checking end clearance, and after staring at it long enough I figured that out. The manual doesn't say they need to be in, but it has you check the clearance after they are installed. I was trying to save myself some work and ended up making more, Thanks for your help on this. Bill
The Jalopy Journal
