I am working on a 46 Cadillac hydramatic that has excessive end play. Someone has been in here before and I suspect that is the cause of my problems. All the thrust washers are present without excessive wear, and I still have a couple hundred thousandths end play. I am thinking a wrong part was installed sometime in the past. I have rebuilt a couple of these before without incident, but this is stumping me. The transmission was a disaster. the rear clutch drum had the snap ring groove broken off, rear servo had a broken spring spring that destroyed the bore, and the rear pump was worn out. Anybody with hydramatic experience have any suggestions?
i've had a lot of experience on hydros, mostly later ones, '54-'62. yes '62, gmc ran them that late. it sure sounds like a washer is missing somewhere. i believe all hydros shared overall dimensions.
Jim, thanks for your reply. I have the actual Cadillac manuals for this trans, and I have gone through and checked numerous times for overlooked thrust washer and snap rings. The manual tells you to hold the front unit forward with a screwdriver while checking endplay-what keeps it forward during operation? If you push the front unit rearward you have no end play. This excessive movement is what made me think a wrong part was inatalled previously.
I had a similar problem with a Dynaflow many years ago. Could never figure out where the discrepancy was. Finally had a machine shop make me a (spacer) washer and put it together. Worked fine. Go figure......
William, I have a '52 Cad 4-speed hydro. Unlike the '46 hydro the '52 model can be manually shifted down from 4th to 3rd gear. I'd sell it for $75. (located in Calif.-bay area). corvair2
Thank you for your offer, but I figured this out. Guess what? My fault. I have only done three of these old single coupling hydramatics, and I must have checked the end clearance while the 6 bolts holding the out put assembly to the rear unit were installed on the previous two. These bolts need to be installed when checking end clearance, and after staring at it long enough I figured that out. The manual doesn't say they need to be in, but it has you check the clearance after they are installed. I was trying to save myself some work and ended up making more, Thanks for your help on this. Bill