Jus sayin', I flogged a TH350 for 140,000, through a 370 gear. Then ran a TH400; broke it twice 78,000 miles, with 410 gear.
Only issue I ever had with my TH400 was a valve sticking in the valve body. Smoked it. Guy rebuilt it “freed up” the sticky one. Started whining again, and I went with a B&M VB. BBC, OT 70 LS5.
I am doing the same thing- damn that looks good painted. I definitely won’t miss the hydramatic linkage, but I will miss the quirky shifting. My hydro blew up and broke a couple bands unfortunately. I’m going to run 3x2 2gc’s so hopefully the simplified throttle linkage contributes to success… As to the discussion at hand, when I was a kid my buddies and I messed with a lot of old cars, and anything automatic that wasn’t a TH400 was a turd… We were very ignorant. It seems in general th350s are much more appreciated today; it just might be the most no bullshit solid functioning transmission I’ve ever had in a car. My OT truck has one that my dad and I rebuilt on the tailgate after watching a YouTube video… it’s really hard to beat that. Despite that, the 400 going in my olds was in another car I drove daily and it was rock solid too. I have seen a lot of 400 cores in classifieds cheap lately, and I wondered if I should be more serious about hoarding them.
About 15 years ago I sold two long tail shaft BOP pattern TH400’s at a swap meet for $25 each. Some guy saw them and snapped them both up without asking any questions. I suspect it might be due to them possibly having the heavy duty sprag in them. They were both out of late sixties Bonnevilles. At the time I was trying to make room in the garage, but looking back I wish I’d held onto them. As it stands now I’ve only got one Chevy pattern and one BOP pattern as stand by’s, both with short tail shafts.
Update. Guy contacted me and says get these out of my shed. 4 350’s with 2 being BOP style and a aluminum Powerglide. Also a 4x4 350. They are still out there.
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