1956 cadillac transmission

[Roger Zimmermann]

Rolls-Royce models till 1964 or something like that never used the Hydramatic installed on Cadillac models from 1956 to 1964. Rolls used the first Hydramatic generation.

[TJ Hopland]

Rolls actually ended up buying the design and tooling and kept building them themselves didn't they?    Was it because they didn't like the 'new' design?  Or maybe GM made em such a good deal that it made sense for them to have full control over the production?     I think I read in the early 50's there were years that GM sold more than they used themselves.     I wonder if that would have been the case if they didn't have the Buick and Chev transmissions that were different?   

[wbdeford]

Rolls used it up until 1967.

[TJ Hopland]

Did they then start buying 400's or go to something else?   I wonder if the design just hit a horsepower limit? 

[savemy67]

Hello Rob,

The heaviest cars I could find that use a 700R4 prior to 1993 are the Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, and Chevrolet Suburban.  How does the weight of these two cars compare to the weight of your '56 Cadillac?

If you decide to make the conversion, you will have a lot of work to do yourself, as others have indicated.  I tend to stick with the original engineering because it was mostly a holistic approach to building and selling a premium automobile.  I would argue that a competent rebuild of your Controlled Coupling Hydra-Matic will result in a reliable transmission, and save you countless hours of time, for about the same amount of money.  Good luck.

Respectfully submitted,
Christopher Winter

[dplotkin]

That price is through a friend who uses him regularly for old Rolls Royces (they also used that trans), and is his "cost" of hiring the guy.

Rolls Royce licensed from GM and built in England the dual range Hydra-matic. Rolls never used the Controlled Coupling Hydra-matic skipping it until the THM400 arrived for 65.

Dan