hey guys and gals, are there places that sell adapters to mate a hydra-matic (olds pattern out of a 51 kaiser) to a sbc?? i have looked all over and cant find anything really...i have seen some adapters for olds to chevy, but im not sure if it would work the same considering the fluid coupler is a different bolt pattern than the chevy crank.....i dunno.... also, are any parts to beef them up still out there or does a guy just have to be engineouitous? i know that b&m sold all of their tooling for the hydro sticks in the 80s.......bet they regret that now.... hopefully these are silly questions that everyone else knows the answer to. so yeah, any info would be killer, its going in my 51 chevy gasser build up, pics soon!
You may want to check with Wilcap out in Ca. I know they used to make an adapter for your application many years ago.....they are still in business.
The hydramatic out of the 51 Kaiser is probably a SINGLE RANGE unit and not the newer DUAL RANGE (not DUAL COUPLING JETAWAY). In your case you may have durability problems since your trans was meant for the 126 hp Continental six cylinder engine. I would suggest getting a 54-56 Olds or Pontiac unit or a 54-55 Cadillac unit. Then you will need what they used to call, the truck package, which Chevy used when their 55-62 trucks were equipped with the hydramatic. The package included bell housing, starter, flywheel, fluid couplings, torus cover, and trans mounts. The flywheel used also had the O-ring type of seal and used only 18 bolts, whereas most of the other engines used a 30 bolt flywheel and a gasket to seal the torus cover to the flywheel. Wilcap along with Bentsen's do make adapters, and are probably similar to the old Chevy truck package. Finally when sealing up the flywheel to the crankshaft use a product called PLIOBOND sealer. Use this on the flange and on the bolt threads. Some installers use a thin gasket between the flange and flywheel which works too.
yeah, its the early gm single range built for kaiser. somone had pulled the old kaiser 6 cylinder and hooked up an olds j2 to it, so im sure its fine for what i plan on using it for....but i would like to toughen it up a bit, obviously.
Somehow replacing a J2 Olds with any kind of bellybutton- oops I mean Chevrolet, just seems wrong. On a different note, unless you've got a tilt body on a tube frame where it's going to be out in the open, you'd probably be time and money ahead to put a beefed T200R4 in there. You could then hold your head high with a low enough gear and torque converter ratio to roughly equal the low gear ratio of the early Hydro. I mean it's still got four gears forward, right? Add in the lockup feature and overdrive of the 200R4, the sheer cost of putting an early hydro together, adapting it to a Chevrolet, and the fact ninety nine out of a hundred people probably wouldn't know the difference anyway by looking at the shift quadant, it kind of becomes a no brainer.
HAHAHA, yeah, it would seem that way, but unfortunately someone already bought the J2 before i could lay claim to it....actually the guy bought the engine and tranny and told me if i wanted the hydro, i could have it if i pulled it off (because he didnt know how to)....so thats how i got the hydra-matic. and i already have a 450 horse small block to mate to it. i understand your point about the 200-4r, but i really kinda need to use what i got for now....if i blow the transmission (which is highly possible), i have some turbo 400s and turbo 350s that would take its place....this gasser wont be street legal so i dont need the overdrive, i just want as much nostalgia as possible right now.....and to me, running a hydro is pretty damn cool for now.
Blowing up a hydramatic and ultimately putting in a TH400 seems like a waste of a good hydramatic...sell the single range and run the TH400, that seems like everyone wins...
i am willing to take my chances.....nobody seems to have faith in these anymore i guess....but they seemed to do well during the gasser wars.....and yes, i know that B&M, Cal Hydro, and others strengthened them up to run stronger, but the point is that all of the big names ran them for a reason. i have enough confidence in it. im not going to try to break the hydro, but im not going to cry if i do, i will simply run another trans until i rebuild the hydro. i dont care if a more modern trans is simpler or easier, if easier were the case, i would put a mustang II suspension on it, run a 350/ 700r-4 combo and install vintage air and a dakota digital cluster...and you know i would have to have some flashy boyds on it!! hahah
No faith in these transmissions, huh, only have 5 dual range and one single range of these transmissions. Yeah I have faith in these, especially after mating a 54 trans to a built 371 many years ago. (Broke the differential before doing any transmission harm back then)
What about the earlier Hydros? I have 1 from a '50 Olds, 1 from a '50 Cad and another form a '53? Olds. Two of them came from running cars. Should I scrape the idea of using any of these in favor of a '54-56 Olds? r
The transmissions prior to 1951 have a unique reverse in that it is somewhat like a non synchro transmission. You have to stop at LO before going to REVERSE to avoid a large CLUNK. So I would not recommend these. But the '53 unit should be OK. If you are intending on rebuilding, make sure the clutch packs have 8 clutch plates. If I remember correctly there is sufficient room to add clutch plates if there is not 8 plates already. I would try this trans first, if you experience trouble, then go to the later boxes.
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