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powerglide to 700r4

6K views 18 replies 8 participants last post by  stu 
#1 ·
i have a 64 malibu with a 2 speed in it and i have a 700r4. Id like to do the switch, but retain my stock colum shift, its a bench seat car, and i like the interior the way it is, but i could use the overdrive. it would be real nice to save the colum shift, is this possible? also,are there brackets and whatnot for hooking the TV cable up to a 230 l6 ? how do i address the lockup? im guessing thats the 4 pronged conector in the side of the tranny
 
#2 ·
trans swap

Should be possible..do a google search or a search on this site for trans builders as they should be albe to help you out. There is a switch to replace the od switch you now have and after market TV brackets and cables that should work..shift linkage will probably take a bit of fiddling to get right but is doable..prbably have to rework the gear indicator to reflect tha *** is now an od trans..

Sounds interesting..keep us posted..:welcome:
 
#4 ·
Shouldn't be too much trouble. TCI sells a kit for ~70 bucks to allow your 700r4 to lock up even if you're using a carburetor. I bought the kit, installed it, saw how simple it was and wished I'd just read up on the matter with the internet before I dropped the coin on the tci stuff. I ended up just wiring my 4th gear pressure switch to engage my lockup on the torque converter. I also kept a manual switch in the car if I wanted to lock up in 3rd.

You'll need a shorter driveshaft if the 700r4 is longer. I'm not certain if pg's came with extended tailshaft housings or not. I know that the three I have monkeyed with did not. I'd also check about splines on your driveshaft yoke. I'm not sure if the pg's ever had the fine spline setup but I'm sure your 700r4 does. As I recall, on my 55 (original powerglide) I ended up using a driveshaft from an 82 buick regal with a 2004r transmission in it. If you get it from the junkyard, use their cutting torch to get the u joints out before you take it home.

If you run into needing to adapt a gm inner clip style u joint to the outer clip style u joint - Napa Part Number 372 is what you are looking for.

The column shift part will probably be very easy. Have someone sit in your car and run your shifter through the settings while you look at the column on the inside of the engine compartment. See whats moving. Take a picture of it and the guys here will be able to help you out better if you need to fabricate anything. On my car it amounted to a 7/16's inch dowel rod with funny bends in it to use the column shift.

Jegs sells the little bracket (its really simple, you can make your own if you're handy with a grinder) that you can bolt just behind your carburetor that will allow you to clip your tv cable down like it was supposed to be there. Just keep in mind that all you're doing is pulling on this cable when you open the throttle. It may require you to drill a hole on the bottom side of where your throttle cable/linkage hooks up so you can have something to connect to.

Hope this helps. Wish I still had a wiring diagram for the transmission, I do know that there was a thread in here several months back that had a link to anything and everything you wanted to know about a 700r4 transmission.
 
#7 ·
all seems good, the biggest change is the shifter linkage i think, im not too worried about the rest, relocating the crossmember and the shortening of the driveshaft arent too hard, i found a yoke from a broken truck driveshaft, but i will need that converson ujoint.


i took a close look at that $70 wiring kit at 700r4.com, it super simple, the relay can be found at most parts stores, i think i have a few, one came with some airhorns i found at a junkyard, and i bought one for i think 10 bucks at canadiantire, and they come with lighting kits too. i think it would be easy to duplicate their kit for a fraction of the cost.
 
#8 ·
The hardest thing to overcome with this type of change will be the gear selection detents in the stock shift pattern not being even remotely close to the gear selection pattern of the 700.

You can simply change the length of the shifter arm on the transmission to make it work, and your detents in the stock column can be overcome by the detents in the transmission.

You will also have the shift indicator that doesn't match the transmissions' shift pattern.
 
#11 ·
I don't think that is a true statement. Both of my 55 Chevrolet's do not. One was an original powerglide/265 car, the other a powerglide/235 car IIRC (it never had the motor in it when I got it). The detents in the shifter were determined solely from the transmission. There was a detent of sorts at the very top for Park, but that was just so you would have to physically pull the stick back to you a little before picking a gear and you couldn't accidentally pull the thing out of park. On my four door, I swapped a 700r4 into it. The shifter only had the detents that the transmission being used had.
 
#13 ·
the detents in the column are close enough to function with the 700 tranny. Sen it done many time with early aluminum glide conversions

A co worker hooked a 700r4 to his 250 cid 6 cylinder engine last year. He is real happy with it. We had to install a mild stall speed converter ( 2000 rpm stall) so his brake leg did not get tired holding his non boosted brake pedal
 
#14 ·
stu said:
That is still called a detent.
I agree but my point was that it was the only detent on the column. There were no others built into the column that coincided with the powerglide shifter. Unless Park were to change positions on automatic transmissions, there is no reason to consider the detents in the column an issue.


To look at it another way - if you disconnected the shift linkage from the transmission - the column would not have any bumps in moving it up or down save for the park safety spot at the very top.
 
#16 ·
stu said:
Wrong senor.

There is a stop from neutral to reverse.
There is a stop from Drive to low.
These are called detents.
If your column doesn't have them they are worn out.
I suppose this is where we will have to agree to disagree. I know that I've had my hands on and used two different columns that do not. One of those columns was rebuilt by my particular hands and nowhere in it was there any sort of detent for the automatic shifter. The bumps were established by the transmission that the linkage was connected to on both of those steering columns. I don't know when they started having detents built into the columns (if in fact they do, never had to tinker with one) but I know that pg Tri-Five Chevys never had them.
 
#18 ·
I suspect you were going to post a link to it, which prompted me to do a search at ClassicChevy.com to see if I could find one. They sell a detent bracket which they claim is a reproduction of the original. To my knowledge, I've never seen one of these before but you must be right as I can see it is on their site plain as day.

http://www.classicchevy.com/product...=999&mscssid=SUK6AEJS2TWD9GBHEJ6X9NPDAK1S9M28


At least today wasn't wasted by not learning something (grin). Still curious as to why I never came across one of these things though. If I get time I'm going to tear the four door's column back down and have another look.


edit - nevermind, I see you edited your post with a pic.
 
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