My best friend ´s wife has had some bad luck today: She screwed up the ****** on his 56 Buick Coupe grocery getter ( 322? nailhead, Dynaflow, 2 bbl carb?). I would really love to help them out but I´ve never seen a Dynaflow in real life.I´ve only rebuilt a Th 350 once , but from what I´ve heard those dynaflows aren´t even similar to a Th 350. I´m sure you have the right ideas! Here´s what happened: When she was backing up in a parking lot she heard a noise from underneath the car.Since then the car didn´t move anymore when she revved up the engine , so she rolled home idling. Now, you can hardly shift to "Park", but if you get it to "P" there´ll be some bad noise which sounds like " Krrrrrrrrr". It is still possible to shift to " Drive" and "Reverse" but the gear crashes in with another bad noise and the car won´t move in any direction. We´ve already been thinking about bolting a Th 350 or a 400 behind that nailhead but I think there might be some bolt pattern, drivetrain and rearend issues.Is it a big deal or a no brainer? Thanks a thousand times for your help, it´s pretty hard to get some good info over here. Baumi
your gonna need an adaptor plate to go from the ****** to the motor an open drive line conversion for the rear end not your simple sunday after noon swap have fun tom
I dont know anything about dynaflow's, but I do happen to own two of them. One is bolted up to a '61 401 the other one to a earlyer engine ( probably a 322 ). I want to keep the aluminum bellhousing for the 401, the rest I am going to get rid off. I will give you both ******'s if you pay for shipping, or just the earyer one if that would help your buddy. Shipping will be very expensive, so you might want to use this as a last resort. I will hang on to these ******'s so you can investigate what the problem is with the one you have there, if you want to go that route... I do not know what condition these ******'s are in, or when they were used last...( they might only be good for parts...)
Thanks a lot! That´s an incredible offer! My friend Rene, the owner of the Buick, is a hell of a guy. Unfortunately he´s got a bad disease called ALS and is not able to work on his cars by himself anymore. I´d really love to help him out. Maybe someone can tell by the facts I posted above what might have happenend to the ******. Are the Dynaflows worth a rebuild or should we rather use "a little help from an adapter kit"?
OK Baumi. Look at al the options and let me know what you deside. BTW, if you would know of any Europeans that are going to the LA Roadster Show to buy a car, Maybe they could throw a ****** in the container with it ( International HAMB Relay...). I dont think I will be able to go myself, but Hot Rod Ron is going for sure.
It sounds like the reverse/low band has gone out, and the resulting damage of that has wiped out the rest of the stuff. Not a good thing. If you want to stay dynaflow, be aware that they are expensive to fix, we are talking about $800-1000 here in the U.S. So triple that, convert it to euro's (?) and you'll be in the correct area for repair. As far as adapting one, there is a company that makes adapters but they aren't cheap either. Then you will have to convert the rearend to open drive, or swap in a new rearend. I love my Buick, but hate it's drivetrain. I just bought a 65 Buick ST400 trans and am going to convert mine to open driveline and a new rear as well. Mine is a 60, so the late ST400's (64-66) will bolt up with a little work. You on the other hand are stuck. Maybe you can find a manual bellhousing and bolt up a manual trans. The early bellhousings seem to be easier to find than the later models.
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