How do you identitify a transmission?

Well I am working on a 1959 Fairlane Galaxie 500 (fourdoor) and I have the re-print of the Ford shop manual. In the manual there is a section on how to decode the VIN, and in that breakdown there are four options for the transmission. 1=Conventional Drive, 2=Overdrive, 3=Fordomatic, and 4=Cruise-o-matic. Seems pretty straight forward until I looked at my VIN and in the place where the number should the is the letter "C".

So my guess would be that it has a Cruise-o-matic, right?

Any help would be helpful. If it does have a Cruise-o-matic, is that even worth having rebuilt or should I just bite the bullet and buy an adapter to put something different behind the 292?

Thanks in advance.

 

I usually identify transmissions by looking at them.

One piece aluminum case = 2 speed fordomatic.

Separate bellhousing and iron case = 3 speed cruiseomatic

 

There are web sites with images of the transmission pans for various different types of automatic transmissions that make it a cinch to identify them if you can get the car up on ramps or a lift to see what it looks like.

On the other hand, since it's apparently one of two possibilities and squirrel was nice enough to give you a simple guide to distinguishing between them I'm sure you can figure out which one you have.

Once that's done the next step is to determine whether the one you have is worth a damn for the application you have in mind. For that, you can certainly get some opinions here, but you can also use a Google search to find info on it.

 

Thanks guys, I guess I will crawl under there and see what it looks like and see if there are any numbers or anything on it.

As far as if the trans will work for what I am doing is still a question though. It is a four door car, going to have the 292 in it, nothing crazy just a mild cam and I got the four barrel manifold for it. Just want to have a nice cruiser not a dragster or anything like that.

Thanks again for the quick responses.

 

59 full size car should have a 9" rearend, you can put whatever gear ratio you want in it.

As long as the transmission works and does not leak, it should be fine. The old transmissions are a bit harder to find parts and competent repair shops for, but they still work ok for transportation, just like they did 50 years ago.

 

Thanks Squirrel, according to the VIN it has 3.10 to 1 gears in the 9".
Since that's what it came with those should be just fine for highway cruising right? I just don't want to running at like 3000 rpm going 55 down the highway.

 

3.10 should be OK on the highway, get you up to 65 or so without buzzing the engine too much. You can choose from 2.47, 2.50, 2.75, 3.00, etc if you want to drop the rpm a bit.

 

Thanks for all the help

 

So I cleaned up my transmission and found an orange I.D. tag on the drivers side that shows that the engine size is 292 and then next to that is what I ***ume is the trans I.D. and it says "PAZ-S 13380". Does anybody know how to translate that?

Does that mean that it is the Fordomatic 3-speed since it has an I.D. tag instead of having a number stamped on the other side of the transmission?

Thanks in advance for any further help.

 

any body? I just need to know how to tell if it is in fact a fordomatic or a cruise-o-matic. If it is a fordomatic how do you tell if its the 2 speed or 3 speed?

 

what does the transmission look like?

 

It looks like the one on top of the pic I posted, but I didn't to just ***ume it was a 3-speed because it looks like that one picture I have found.

Just wasn't sure if there was a casting number or an I.D. chart somewhere that would tell me for sure before I buy the wrong rebuild kit.

Thanks