mid 60s buick? look at the tag on the side of the trans, see if it's two letter code starts with B and what year the two numbers are
its some sorta th400 thats for sure. I'll scope out some numbers later, had a big C on the tag and said turbo hydra matic
What a curious combo! A Buick nail head TH400 behind a Cadillac motor. Did the '64 429 pre-date the BOP and Chevy mounting patterns?
caddy and big buicks began using the BOP in 67 I think. Chevy started using the "modern" bolt pattern with 55 V8s, Oldsmobiles amd midsize Buicks started in 64 (300, V6 etc). Pontiac seems to be the originator of the BOP design, although they were sort of different on the older engines.
lots of strange stuff went on with the BOP th400. the amc motors in the jeeps used em with a factory adapter....
THere were TH400s built that fit the AMC jeep engines directly. And some Jeeps had Buick engines in the 60s, no adapter needed for the BOP trans.
that sure is it!! thanks a lot man!! So what im thinkin is that I can get a regular th400 rebuild kit for this and a shift kit also?? It has the single spade elecric switch on the side so its not a switch pitch I guess. The drain is also the dipstick, dont have one so I guess I'll machine a new one up. It has the old style filter in the pan with the horseshoe pan, where can i get the replacement filter at now? Thanks squirrel and the rest of you guys, big help!
the tag had a turbo hydra matic at the top, then a big C on the left in the middle, and at the bottom had CAD-64- 5 numbers or so So this would have been done at the assembly line?
Cad had a one year only bolt pattern in 1963. Your engine may be a 63 and not a 64. That would explain the adapter plate. 64 Cad & up used the T-400 Bolt pattern which I believe was BOP. I used to run across good 63 cad motors but couldn't use them in anything but 63 model cars because of the weird bolt pattern. GM was switching over to the T-400 on their bigger cars in 64 and had the remnants of the "Slim Jims and Jetaways from 57 to 63. They weren't very good trans compared to the indestructible T-400. You can tell a T-400 by the location of the Vacuum Modulator. It's on the side on T-400's and to the rear on T-350's.
GM sold the nailhead pattern TH400 as a universal trans and the Jeeps with this trans and a Buick motor use a cast short adapter bellhousing. Which means there's an adapter out there that's BOP on one side and will fit a Dynaflow on the other, presumably. Several other smaller carmakers used the trans as well. I would expect through '69 the Jeeps using whatever other motor and a TH400 also had an adapter.
Interesting about the trans, the tag on the side indicates that it's an original Cadillac setup from 1964. I wish I knew more about it but I don't, sorry!
I'll have to check the numbers on the block but I saw the 64 the motor came out of. The trans is stamped CAD-64-XXXX so I'm assuming its a 1964 model not the 1 year 1963 390. I have an original 64 caddy and when I had the motor out the block had the bolt pattern to the jet-away. I couldnt bolt up a th400 I had at the time to that block. Very odd how many trannys were in these cars from the factory. I got a lead to a cadillac tranny genius, ronny @transmatic in burbank. I'll have to pick his brain on wtf is goin on here. Seems like I'll be opting for this buick th400 over the jetaway. The th400 seems like I can have more fun building it up and gettin the caddy movin quicker
Huh, Thats rather neat. I thought it looked similar to the late 60's BOP th350 in the garage, who woulda thought I was close. Neat find, I aint never seen somethin' like that.
There is a thread on here somewhere about how the Hydro-matic plant had a big fire, and GM started selling TH400's to all kinds of people because there wern't any Hydro-matics.
That Hydromatic plant fire was in 1953, that's why there are some 53 Cads and Olds with Dynaflow's in them.
Back in the 70's some Jaguars came with a GM TH400. but it was their own bellhousing. We've done a few at the shop.
Caddy and Buick were the first to use the ST400/T400 in 1964. They both have the same bellhousing pattern. they used it through 66. After that the engines had the BOP pattern. Jeep, Jag, Rolls, and others used the "universal" case, which was the Nailhead pattern. GM sold it as universal because the bell on the trans was shorter, so an adapter could be used to fit other engines.
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