Stovebolt.com Forums The Shop Area Driveline GM 4 SPEED?

Muncie's are out there if you look and parts are available from a number of suppliers. The price is driven up because of the collector car market and everyone wanting to be numbers matching. If your just wanting a good 4 speed the Saginaw will hold up very well as long as you do as Jerry says and not abuse it too much. I had a friend in school with a very nasty 67' C10 with a 327 backed by a Saginaw, a lot of folks lost money to that truck.

It is a 1/2 ton with a 6 ft. bed hopefully with a full load of firewood back and forth through the hills should not be a problem with the Saginaw? He does cut a lot of firewood.

Maybe a ¾ton or bigger might ba better option if wood hauling is his main goal. Bigger brakes and suspension to boot....

I wore out a clutch once a year on a late 60's Ford F-150 1/2 ton with a 302 V8 and a 3 speed. Fortunately it had a "lifetime warranty". I think it cost Auto Zone 3 of 4 clutches before they started refusing to replace them! Just because I had the bed full of wood and a 16 foot trailer piled high- - - - -why did the clutch keep burning out?
Jerry

I have to share this...... I have been hearing every older guy tell me how weak saginaws were and how they tore up 10 before they put a super T10 in or a auto. When i built my turbo LS drift car on a budget I scored a cheap/free saginaw 4 speed with a shifter and bellhousing. The car made 535/540 tq for a full 2 seasons and never broke with that setup and let me tell you I was shifting that car sideways off the rev limiter every day. I pushed the car farther with a built 6.0 LS and the trans finally exploded at 643hp 713 ft lbs. I then got ANOTHER free one and ran it for about 3 months and it then exploded again so I ended up putting a T56 in the car.

Moral of the story is they are way stronger that everyone says. I feel like everyone online has “heard” of them breaking from someone else that “heard” it online somewhere. My buddy has one behind a 5.3 LS in a 2wd c10 with no issues for years and he hammers it around town pretty good. So dont be scared.

Thanks for the replys, there Bolters, need to get me a service manual for it now? I looked on line and didn,t see one, I'll keep looking....

The Saginaw four speed is plenty strong as long as you are not doing big giant holeshots, slicks, clutch dumps, dry burn outs. Here is the thing. They are a nice simple trans to rebuild. Yes you can get a rebuild kit for under a hundred, but spring for the better kits with the forged syncros. About 120. Also, and this one you will want to beat the bushes for, get a new pair of shift forks. One of the forks is used on both the four speed and three speed and so is pretty easy to come by new. The other is four speed only so that one is a little harder to do.

I paid 250 for my 2 groove sag. (3.11 first gear and its a ball, gets you going from a stop and no its not too low at all. Stock 50s three speeds generally were in the range of 2.94 first gears so pretty close). I paid 120 for the rebuild kit, a few dollars for degreaser, anaerobic sealer, probably another 140 for new forks, and a few dollars for paint. So I have like $550 into a fully rebuilt four speed. That is pretty hard to beat compared to the cost for a rebuilt muncie or BW T-10 or something of that nature.

Hurst still makes an installation kit if you want to use a Hurst shifter, otherwise the factory shifters will do. Its not a terrible choice for a transmission if you are trying to be careful with the money.

Sounds Bueno, need a service manual, and I will be on my way, Thank you....

Here is a link for a Pontiac service manual, it covers the basic Saginaw 4 speed. You can print this.

http://ronspontiacpage.com/1968PSM/pages/7C.4.speed.saginaw.manual/7C.001.html

I did dry pavement clutch dropping rev limiter burnouts with mine every day with well over 500hp getting smashed through it. Only reason it probably lasted so long was it was in a 3150lb car on a 245 tire so it was up in smoke no mater what😂