Here's an interesting fact about transmission fluid that no one has been able to answer for me.
The Hydramatic transmission originally used type A fluid. It's possible to get it but extremely difficult.
The original Ford-O-Matic and Cruise-O-Matic transmissions also used Type A fluid.
Ford Recommends Type F fluid as a replacement for Type A fluid in its transmissions.
GM recommends Dexron for it's Type A transmissions.
If both Type F and Dexron are recommended substitutes for Type A, why can't the two be mixed? Would anyone use Type F in a Hydramatic or Dexron in an old Ford transmission?
For the record I use Dexron in the Cadillac and Type F in the Fords but I suspect they're pretty much the same thing.
Whale oil was used as a friction modifier in transmission fluids until it was banned in 1972. Mechanics at the time swore up and down that no automatic transmission ever shifted properly again. They were right, at least for a time.
Transmission failures went through the roof by 1975 topping 8 million. They were fairly uncommon prior to that.
This led to rapid advances in synthetic friction modifiers which.
