I need help with 64' t bird not shifting

Hey Everyone,

i'm hoping someone can shed some light on my problem.
My Fiance picked up a clean 64' T-bird long before we met and it
had been sitting for years so about a year and a half ago i brought it back
from the dead. Did all the basics on the engine and added an Edelbrock carb.

Its running great as far as idle,temp, and efficiancy but the car will not shift into 3rd. it was leaking tranny fluid when i first started on the car and now it only leaks a little. my Question is, what would be stopping the car from shifting into third?... Do these trannys require vacume pressure?... Does the Tranny have an adjustment. These's 390's throw me off a little.

She can get around town just fine cruisin around but the engine just winds up way too much.

Please help guys ! We want to use it next weekend for our engagement photos but need 3rd gear to get to the shoot.

Thanks !

Jason Lee

 

dunno about C6s...but sounds like a bad modulator....get on line...see if you can learn a little bit about the transmission. See if there's such a thing as a modulator for that car.

dj

 

If I remember 64 still used the Cruis-o-matic which shifted off of throttle
pressure. Changing the carb may have thrown the adjustment off.
check to see if there is a rod from the carb to the trans, may have
to make adjustments for the new carb to make the trans shift right.
the C6 also called a Cruis-o-matic did not start till 1965

kcl

 

64 still used the old style Cruisomatic. Shifts were a combo of throttle position by linkage and vacuum by way of modulator. Check to be sure the line is pulling vacuum from the intake manifold to the modulator on the rear of the transmission case. With no vacuum the transmission thinks the engine is at wide open throttle and will not shift till the governor tells it to by RPMs.

 

Great. Thanks for the info. Any other tips i should know ?

 

Make sure she starts off with the green shift color on the column or it will only start in second gear and not first.

 

holy crap ! I figured it out.
The kick down rod got jammed in the down position. The whole time she was driving. Seems to be running great now that i brought it back forward.
The wierd thing Tbirdreg is she has it in the smaller dot and it runs through 3 gears. 2nd @ 10mph and 3rd @ 25mph. Seemed to be a little smoother in the small dot position and the big dot position was a little rougher off the line?
Any ideas?