Hi, just joined and am looking forward to working on my new "arrival"! Is the 3-speed and OD on the 49 Lincoln the same as the Mercury tranny? If not, anyone know where I might find some parts, if I need them? Thanks
I seriously doubt it is the same as Mercury. The engine is 50% larger and more powerful and the car is 500 pounds heavier. It would shell out a Mercury trans as soon as you got on it hard.
We did one of those for a customer in Florida about 8-10 months ago. It really needed a cluster gear.....rough teeth on first gear. I couldn't find the cluster gear anywhere and I looked for several months since it wasn't a hurry job......no luck. We ended up dressing the teeth the best we could. Got it back together and they've been driving it. Of course, I don't know if it survived the hurricane at this point. To answer your question, you couldn't use the Mercury transmission instead because it's not stout enough. The Lincoln uses the Borg Warner T-85 heavy duty transmission with the R-11 overdrive. Aside from the governor and the solenoid, no other parts interchange between the two transmissions.