Ok i may catch some heat for this but ive done my searhces and just cant seem to find good literature regarding a 3 speed c6 swap into my galaxie with a 390 and a 2 speed. I have a 64' Galaxie, and the 2 speed is driving me crazy at hwy rpm. Trans is fine, no slips catches or anything. Would i be better off doing a rear end gear swap to bring my rpms down? Or am i on the right track with the c6? Any info or links would be greatly appreciated.
Transmission swap won't make a difference. Whether 2, 3, or 4 speed(manual), all are 1:1 ratio in top gear. Only an overdrive or gear swap will lower your highway RPM's. Do you have a tach hooked up? How bad is it? By 1964, most passenger cars were being geared more conservatively I would think, what with the interstate system and everything.
Those cars were built for cruising at 70-80 mph all day. Are you sure you don't have a 3 speed with Direct not working? My '64's will do 80 or so in Second.....
2 spd? Are you sure you don't just have a 3 spd Cruiseomatic and have the selector in the wrong spot? Does your shift indicator had a large green dot? The order is different than most (and later C6's), if you have it on the wrong "small" dot, the trans will start in 2nd gear and shift to 3rd, a Ford feature that was for starting out in snow country without spinning the wheels. Won't help your highway RPM, but will definitely help acceleration- The C6 will also start in 2nd if you put it in "2", and stay there, and they started calling it 'SelectShift" Crites has a decent crossmember to help install the C6, but you may not need it
The only auto available behind a 390 in '64 was the 3 spd Cruis-O. Switching to a C6 won't change a single thing. Plus, alot of Cruis-O equiped Galaxie's had 3.0 gears in the rear for highway cruising. Your only option to lower RPM's is to switch to an AOD or overdrive manual trans. However, you may have a trans problem where it isn't shifting properly due to selector position as MeanGene alluded too, or it may not be shifting into high gear at all. We need more info. Good Luck.
Ive been swamped at work and havent been able to work on the car. As soon as i can i will install a tach and get a refernce that way. Motor is not the original and im assuming the trans is not either. The gear indicator is that of a 3 speed but only shifts from 1st to 2nd. Whats the trans case stamp if any to indicate type and speed?
Your trans should have a metal tag attached to one of the bolts on the servo cover. If you post the numbers here, I can decode it for you. It's possible that your 2-3 shift valve is stuck.
Does it look like this? http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Ford+Cruise+O+Matic+Identification&FORM=RESTAB#
I get your concern. Older cars ran much higher rpms at highway speeds and also had very little sound control compared to today's vehicles, so it's also much more noticeable. My '67 Galaxie 390/C6 revs about 3200rpm at 60mph. That a LOT faster than today's OD engines (my Dodge van runs at 1800rpm at 60mph) and but it doesn't seem to hurt anything....
And that speed is by GPS... my factory speedo is off. Just had to throw that in because I've had people tell me they could cruise at 70mph no problem and then they start waving their hands and yelling cause 70 on their speedo is 55 in reality
Okay, I'm gonna jump in here without reading the rest of the replies, so I'm probably covering ground everyone else has... If you have a '64 Ford with a 4bbl 390 you have a 'PCE' code Cruise-o-Matic. It's a 3-speed automatic, the basis for the later aluminum-case FMX and the whole AOD/AODE/4R70W/4R75W transmission family. Very good transmission though rebuild parts are getting harder to find now. The 'PCE' box got various beefing (9-plate clutch pack vs 3, etc.) relative to those used with the 352s and 2-bbl Mercury 390s. You probably have a 3.00:1 rearend, which is a reasonable compromise for a 3-speed transmission. You could move down to something in the 2.50 range if cruise RPM is the only thing that matters to you, but you will give up quite a bit of out-of-the-hole oomph. Consider too that OE tires were around 27in OD, if you're running some modern 14in radials e.g. 215/75-14 they're probably smaller OD so your effective gear may be more like 3.25 anyway. Yeah, cars turned 2700-3000RPM (or more...) at freeway speeds back then, it's why engines used to go 100K when now, with four, five, six, or eight-speed gearboxes now they'll go all day at 1800RPM and 250K before you even notice they're burning oil, usually in some modern car it's the $3000 transmission or some $600 sunroof motor that causes you to junk it.... If you have a nice tax refund burning a hole in your pocket (see if you can figure out hnow NOT to let the govt get the float on your money next year) you need a decently built 4-speed automatic (AOD if you don't like electronics, 4R70W/4R75W if you like fiddling your shift points with a laptop and have money to burn) and something between 3.50-3.89 rearend gears. You'll need an adapter to bolt ANY later transmission to an FE, and to make the electronically-controlled boxes work on a carb motor you'll need a throttle position sensor (not a big deal) in addition to the $1200 of ECU and wiring. Oh, and of course the rear trans mount's in a different place, so the trans mount crossmember has to be moved/adapted. C6 will gain you nothing in gearing, you can build them with the lower three gears from a wide-ratio E4OD/4R100 but...by the time you're done you'll have spent more than you would on a built AOD and, unless you've got a 700HP motor, you'll have a lot less to show for it. Don't even think about the E4OD, you'd have to cut three feet of your tunnel out to make it fit. I've trial-fitted that combo, one look and I sold the E4OD and had a 4R70W built. Not to mention that E4OD cases come only in 385-series and mod-motor, not FE, anyway; you'd still need a $500 adapter or some decent CAD and/or milling skills to make it all.