Technical Forgive my ignorance, I need B&M hydro help and advice

Just wish I could find an adapter. I found a whole transmission outve a 55 olds 88 minus the flywheel on facebook marketplace for 50 bucks!

 

Not trying to talk shit but just because a few people have a bad experience with them doesn’t mean they’re junk

 

The big question that needs to be answered.

What are you looking to do and how much of a stickler are you of period correctness (Like Me)?

If you want to be 100% period a Hydramatic partially a B&M Hydro (here were other Hi-Po Hydro builders a friend of mine has a Boss Hydro which was a company in Philly I believe) is really the only acceptable automatic.

However, it is going to be expensive and Hydros are heavy, HEAVY, they are F*UCKING HEAVY!!!

When my dad was in his early 20s (late 60s early 70s) he was "drafted" into helping carry a B&M Hydro out of the basement of a speed shop.

It took the people and when they got halfway up the were afraid the stairs were going to collapse!

 

Im looking to cruise. Eventually want to put a blower on my hemi and beat the hell outve it with lots of burnouts

 

Never said they are junk. My point was that in the '50's they were rocket science and not a lot of people had experience rebuilding them. Therefore it was expensive. Rather than pour a lot of money into a car, people junked them and bought a new car for $2000.

 

finding an adapter to mate the hydro to the back of the engine is just half the battle, people saved them but it seems finding the crank adapter to torus assembly is near impossible, at least in my searches.
that part seems easy enough to make if i had one to go off of, a lot easier than the cast bellhousing adapter

 

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/social-forums/hydro-tech.671/

 

Are you talking about the pilot hole in the crank? If not there it needs to be drilled.

 

no, i'm talking about the adapter to mount the olds or pontiac flywheel to the hemi, Y block, nailhead.... crank that you are trying to adapt the hydro to.

 

1953 Oldsmobiles with Buick Dynaflow trans is a rare find, because when August 1953 fire burnt the Hydra-Matic plant to the ground, Oldsmobile had quite a inventory of Dual Range Hydra-Matics on hand, ended up surviving most of the 90 day lost of Hydra-Matic production, before running out and adapting to the Buick Dynaflow like Cadillac was doing, Pontiac of course built far more cars than Olds or Cadillac, they had to adapt to the Chevy Power Glide trans, little over 17,000 1953 Pontiac Chieftains were built with the Power Glide.

 

Do the parts to convert hydramatic to B&M still exist? And what exactly is needed to do so ? Thank you

 

With all the choices of better transmissions than the old extremely heavy Hydramatic, I certainly wouldn't waste time and money trying to fit one to your hemi. Instead I'd choose something like a TH400 if you need lots of strength, or if it's a fun hotrod a TH350. Either still have lots of high performance parts available and adapters easier to find for your hemi also.

 

If they have the late version "slim Jim" hydramatic, I can see why. They were very prone to failure and had horrible shifts. Nothing like the crisp sifts of the early hydramatics.