The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Hydra-matic hurdles

I bought a hydramatic driveline for my 54 3100 only to find I needed to gather some missing brackets, linkage etc. Cleared that one only to find that previous owner had installed behind new engine with no pilot bushing. Dampner spring in torrus cover broke and went thru torrus halves damaging fins and wearing rear torrus casing kinda thin. Located replacment parts only to find the throttle pressure lever would spin complete 360 degrees. Pulled valve body and found that knurled part of shaft broke loose. Studied assy. manual and found correct mounting position and had welded up. Feeling pretty good and that all major hurdles had been cleared. Went tonight to auto parts store to get recommended Type A automatic tranny fluid as per service manual. 2 stores and all I get is blank stares and "there is no such thing" "What's it go in"? What type of trans fluid are the other Hydra owners running? Thanks G.H.

"Type A" fluid was replaced by Dexron, many years ago! It had natural whale oil in it, and when the ban on whaling went into effect, a synthetic substitute had to be found. Just about any Dexron brand will substitute for type A fluid without a problem. Type "F" has too many friction enhancers to work right. It will cause very hard shifts, and possibly cause the soft friction material on HydraMatic clutches to shear off the clutch plates.
Jerry