The Cadillac lasalle transmission in my 34 pops out of 3rd gear on overrun, fine under load but as soon as you back off it very gently pops out. It’s a side shift transmission with an old Hurst shifter. anyone have any thoughts before I have to pull the transmission.
Pull the linkage from the shift arm and see if the transmission lever moves farther. If it does readjust the linkage. Then adjust the stops on the shifter. If that's not the problem you have a bad synchro.
Hello, Our close friend with his 34 Ford 5 window coupe had a huge Oldsmobile motor hooked up to a cad/LaSalle transmission. One of the noticeable items was the constant problems for the full on accelerator excursions. Everything ran smoothly on his daily drives to high school and work, but the minute he got to the dragstrip, on full acceleration, something gave up after several runs. He did win several trophies and they were impressive when we saw them on his desk. (As the years rolled on into my own hot rod days, this 34 coupe was going to be my first purchase, as our friend was moving on with his life and needed the cash. But, in the game of selling/buying, I came up a little short and it sold fast...) But, as a young hot rodder, his modified motor was powerful enough and his build was put together based on what all of our pocketbooks could afford. So, used parts when we could find them and scour our accessible junkyards in our own neighborhood. Or, several miles away into Southern Los Angeles, the aisles of parts were in the huge properties of the South Central locations on Main Street. If money was available, then a trip to the nearby yards was first, or a longer trip to L.A. was necessary. Luckily, on our nearby Terminal Island location, there was a huge junkyard and piles of motors, transmissions and almost what ever was necessary to get a car running. Security was lax as …”no one goes to a dark island compound junkyard in the middle of night…” In our own Westside of Long Beach neighborhood, there were many junkyards packed full of old parts, wrecked cars and almost whatever one needed. If it was not there, the a mile or so away was the south Los Angeles Main Street row of junkyards that made the Long Beach yards look puny and lacking. So, needless to say, we had access to those nearby yards for “stuff.” But, the draw of the Terminal Island yards were so tempting that it was a game for most of our Westside of Long Beach friends. The motor pile was huge and in the next pile, the transmission pile was just as large, with the Cad/LaSalle transmissions being very popular and easy to spot. Jnaki So, when a grinding noise or a malady of sorts happened to the Cad/LaSalle transmission from the 34 Oldsmobile powered Ford Coupe, a midnight run to the island compound was called for in the moment. The parts were always in abundance from the many whole units laying around. Luckily, when I had my own Flathead powered 40 Ford Sedan Delivery, it came with a floor shifting Cad/LaSalle transmission. The original build was this Cad/LaSalle transmission behind a 348 motor in the sedan delivery. It was for sale and no one could afford the combination motor+ transmission build as it sat. So, I offered him a lower amount, and we settled on a Flathead for power, but kept the old motor with the Cad/LaSalle transmission. The former owner was a good mechanic and had just rebuilt the Cad/LaSalle transmission. Now, I had a new/old motor, a newly rebuilt Cad/LaSalle transmission and for the next million miles of surf journeys, not a single problem arose for me. I sold it 5 years later due to going to college. YRMV So, if something is wrong and you have access to parts to rebuild your transmission, it is a very strong unit and in those early days, was one of the most popular stick shift transmissions that was usually put into those hot rod builds. Note: The sound was music to our ears in the early days of drag racing. It gave us the impetus to build our 671 SBC powered 1940 Willys Coupe with a Cad/LaSalle transmission, that we rebuilt from buying it used. Listen to the powerful supercharged SBC motor and the shift from first to second gear. This is what we heard almost every week and it stood up to the power used in racing weekly. A supercharged SBC motor + a nice Cad/LaSalle transmission worked every time in competition. Real original sound coming from the original 1959 Studebaker sedan, filmed in 1959 at Lion's Dragstrip by some young teenager.
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