For the past two days with the help of GREAT friends, we were able to pull the old and tired 4 speed Hydramatic from the GMC 305 V-6.
The Hydramatic Transmission was designed and developed by GM in 1935-36 and was the heaviest transmission GM ever made - how heavy you ask? 465 pounds of Cast Iron and Gears; by comparison my newer 700R4 only weighs 145 pounds.
GM used the Hydramatic from 1937-39 in Oldsmobile and Cadillac; and in 1940 to 1967 in other cars, trucks also including tanks. During the war years, the Hydramatic was used in a variety of military vehicles, including the M5 Stuart tank (where two of them were mated to twin Cadillac V8 engines) and the M24 Chaffee light tank. The extensive wartime service greatly improved the postwar engineering of the transmission, later advertised as "battle-tested."
My transmission is the original $300 factory optional transmission and has well over 250,000 miles on it based on paperwork. This transmission is 60 years old and finally broke - the nerve of GM to make such crappy stuff
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I call the last photo "The Quick and the Dead", the hydramatice seems to be looking down on the new 700R.
