I've got an aircooled powerglide. Looks just like your regular aluminum powerglide accept it has holes cast into the bell housing, and no external cooling lines. I bought an American Shifter for it (yes, the knock off of the gennie and lokar) When I went to install it I the first thing I noticed was that the linkage on the trans did not match their directions. So I called and they had me email them some pics of the ******. Then I got a reply basically stating "that early "air cooled" powerglide will not bolt up to our shifter" WTF? Is there really a difference in casings between the two powerglides?
I believe so... the air cooled ones were not plumbed for fluid circulation, so anything else is a **** shoot. I did sell a nice '67 vintage PG to a guy who installed it in his car and capped the fittings off... and he wanted his $$ back when it **** the bed. Bob
At least one application for the air-cooled 'Glides was the Vega and Monza with the 140 engine. I could imagine those models having an exclusive linkage setup. Some were even equipped with a TorqueDrive tranmission. This was essentially a PowerGlide with no valve body and no automatic upshifting. The shift lever had to be moved manually to change gears. Early Nova ('68-'69-'70?) 4-bangers used this trans as well, but I don't know if it was also air cooled.
This one has the ports for the cooling lines, but they are plugged off. There are ways to convert these to fluid cooled units. But for the guy at American Shifter Company to tell me that my aluminum air cooled powerglide is "too old" for their application isn't making sense. This one came out of a Vega I'm told. Thats why I'm asking if the housings are the same (besides the gaping holes ofcourse) I'm not talking internal parts, just the outside.
i used to use one on a stock car, the 6 cyl converter by the book was supposed to be "looser" rember the linkage being way different, had cooler bungs and holes in bellhousing and air cooler blower on converter
make sure you have the correct "finned" torque converter or it will burn up quick, ask me how i know!
Vega been there done that. Got to have the finned torque converter or in will burn up even then in any hot climate Texas Arizona So Cal it wont last long bad design just to be cheap and save weight.
This type of shifter is mounted using acoupla tail housing bolts and two bosses cast into the case, one on either side. These bosses are used with a bench fixture, to hold the case during building of the trans, (I ***ume that was GM's intention). The Chevy 'glide doesn't have any (unlike 350/400/700). Though, there is a fairly rare BOP bellhousing 'glide that does have them! I think that's the problem; the lack of these bosses to mount the shifter.
The older Novas/Chevy II had the air cooled one, guessing as far back as 1962 or 1963. These were behind the 4 & 6 equipped models. I believe anything with an 8 had the cooling provision. Bob
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