I'm fixing to put a early 50's caddy motor in my 40 coupe and wanted to see if anyone had knowledge of this or had done it before to give me any tips/advice on do's and dont's and possible problems I might have I'm going to stay with the early ford trans and banjo rear.
Too much torque, use it and ****** will go BOOM! fix ****** and banjo go BOOM!. 'Back in the day' those old Ford ******s were dirt cheap, some guys broke 2 or 3 every week, you sure you really wanna be that 'traditional'?
When we built the Lil deuce coupe, we blew 5 transmissions in a row before switching to Hydramatic, and then went to a Lasalle. I would consider a fifties ford unit with overdrive, but eventually you will have to hang an open driveline in it. Stay out it and you can drive it and save the ******, but what fun is staying out of it? If I were to go automatic, I would go Switch pitch Hydro.
Keep the Hydro that comes with the caddy you can't kill those and you can convert them to shift manually. Do a search on the hydro or caddy
Don't let them discourage you. The Ford running gear is fine as long as you don't stand on it and pop the clutch. The only problem I see is the left exhaust manifold clearing the column shift linkage. In my 48 Ford I just got a 39 floor shift trans box and cap and put my 48 gears in it.
Dont let them try to fool you, they litterly bolt right in. I have put them in Deuces, (have a 390 in my Roadster), 34s, 36s, and 3 different 40s, to include the 331 still in my 40 I put in in 75, still driving it today. They only problem is how heavy your foot will be with stock drive train however you can break anything if too severely abused.. Good Luck, if any questions, pm me, will help if I can. Dave (daveydeuce) (PS: I'm on the wife's confuser!!)
Deuce, Send me a pm. I have a friend who has done this exact swap...NO Problems. I asked him to talk to you and he will tell you all you need to know. BTW, he used a saginaw 3-speed hooked to the original column shift. Take a look at the photo below. Check the Bonneville photo and my avatar...all he needs is flames...Kool shot. Murph
I think it's an awesome choice and I actually have just seen a bunch of articles from old Hot Rod mags where they ran the same combo!! The Hop Up issue where Weesner did the cover has a blown 331 in a 40 ford I believe. That would be pretty boss!
Thanks alot for the reply the car has a columbia rear which I just put in and in the south here the ol moonshiners used to run caddy combo with the columbias runnin shine
Back in the day the most popular swaps into '40 Fords were the 303 Olds and the Caddy. The Olds had the starter on the wrong side and needed a changeover adapter as well as the trans adapter. We called the Caddy powered cars Fordillacs. If I remember right I went through six rear ends and seven transmissions. I could change axle keys quicker than my friend could wash and wax his '53 Ford.
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