C4 to AOD swap

I'm going to pick up an AOD for my F1 this week. I know of you guys have done it before, so what can I look forward to on this little adventure?

 

The "Search This Forum" link above in the red bar, is your friend. You may even find a post with a similar vehicle to yours.

I did the C4 to AOD conversion in my '36 special construction roadster. Had to: cut the production ears off the AOD to clear the tunnel, modify driveshaft, install Lokar's TV system, requires different driven speedo gear, new shifter linkage or modify what you have, relocate trans mount which may require moving crossmember. Just to mention few hurdles.

 

One important thing to be aware of is having the correct diameter/tooth count drive plate (flywheel) with the correct "imbalance".

Stated another way, early SBF used 28 oz. imbalance and, typically, a 157 tooth drive plate. Later models/bigger engines, used 50 oz. imbalance and 164 tooth drive plate.

So....if you have an early engine, requiring the 28 oz imbalance, but need a 164 tooth drive plate, you may need to source that from any number of suppliers, IF the one that comes with the AOD is 50 oz./164 tooth.

Ray

 

Thanks guys!

 

I put one in my '70 pickup; 300 inch 6. Fairly simple, The old C-4 was a the old pickup style drive shaft with a slip yoke and companion flange on the rear of the trans. What luck, with AOD in, a '57 Ford driveshaft, the kind that tapers down, fit PERFECTLY. I'm sure this wouldn't happen again! The trans cross member I moved back and drilled 2 new holes in the frame. I believe you can re-use your C-4 flex plate, check the fit with the convertor, it's been almost 20 years on that one. I put a '78 tilt column in, the manual shift lever on the the AOD is not the same length as the C-4. By measuring the "sweep" or "arc" of the column lever from Park to Low, I figured the difference and made an extension for the trans lever and bolted it on. I didn't want to tear into my trans at this point; it was done and frankly I don't think there is a factory lever that would work. The speedo gear, which is "rolled" on to the output shaft, was right, I was running a 3.00 screw, yeah in O.D. the engine was only doing about 1600 at 60, but it would cruise like that! 300s have unreal low-end torque! Now here it's a little hoaky, I will admit! For the T.V. input, I scratched my head several times, then I realized, these pickups from '65 to '72 have the "kick down" hook up with a lever that hangs down below the floor with a small twisted wire cable to the trans, similar to a drum brake self adjust cable. By tweaking that, with the arc thing again, this worked, put over a hundred thou on that trans. No problems!

 

My only advice that has not been mentioned above is that I needed to add a spacer to the spring of the Lokar TV cable so that it would return the TV lever to its base position. Without that it was not possible to properly set up the TV cable. You may not have to do it, but I did have to.