Very pretty car. I agree, @"Rod Knox, the late-fifties cars have always seemed garish. Then along came the gorgeous restraint of the 1961 Lincoln Continental, making the fifties cars look very dated. I can’t imagine how dramatic that clean slab of elegance must have looked to people used to acres of chrome and huge tail fins. When I was little I thought my Grandpa’s Continental the most beautiful car I had ever seen. It still is in my top ten. There is often a coffin-nosed Cord at the show that is also one of my favorites.
Academy of Art University here in San Francisco (world’s biggest art school) has a magnificent car collection (the school owners are enthusiasts, and very rich.) The SF International Auto Show is this week (I was there Monday and will go again on Friday) and every year the college has a few dozen of their nicest cars on display. Their '61 Continental is often there and is one of the newest cars shown. It holds its own with the grand marques of the twenties and thirties that make up most of the collection.
The school offers tours of the collection once a week, but you have to reserve a slot and they don’t have a real museum, just two old auto showrooms jammed with great cars. For the cars they bring, the Auto Show is a much better way to see them as you spend as long as you want with each. From behind a velvet rope, of course, but still well worth the price of admission.
A vacuum gauge may be useful in this case. In fact, these old cars could be timed with a vacuum gauge. Hook the gauge to a vacuum port and start the engine. If the vacuum gauge reading is unsteady, then there is a vacuum leak or other problem. If it is steady, short out each spark plug and note the drop in vacuum. If shorting a spark plug doesn’t cause the gauge to drop, there is a weak cylinder. To time an engine, advance the distributor and note the increase in vacuum. When you advance the timing too high, the gauge becomes erratic. Back off the timing until one more slight turn will decrease the vacuum. Lock the distributor at this point.
This was way I had to time my 1965 Rambler. The timing marks were off, so setting the timing to factory specifications with a timing light was useless.
So in my infinite wisdom I thought I had this car under control, took it on the highway to go see my parents and show them the car and an hour in BOOM. Transmission went. Hour from home. Got a wrecker and went home with my tail between my legs.
A new 350 and trans would be in the ballpark of me rebuilding my current engine and trans. I love the originality of it. I think If I were to get a 2 door something and make it custom then Id do the 350 route. For now she’s going back to sleep for a long time. Depressing…
I think on this era GM, you can hook up just about any transmission from the BOP (Buick, Olds, Pontiac) group or Cadillac, from the 50’s through the 60’s. Only the Chevrolet is different. Two speed, three speed or four speed turbo hydros, any should work. You might need some custom driveshaft work for some though if they are too short.
Pontiac, Olds and Cadillac used the 4 speed Hydramatic with the fluid coupling (not actually a torque converter). Buick used the Dynaflow which had an enclosed drive shaft inside a torque tube. Chevy used the 2 speed powerglide, also entirely different.
Just another thought - I would see if it’s possible to get it rebuilt. It may be that the 65 year old internal "O"rings and seals are failing but the hard parts are OK. It may even still have the original whale oil based transmission fluid in it.
The belhousing is very different as well. Half of it is built into the block of the 331 and the other half is on the trans.
I’m torn on what to do. I dont have the funds really at the moment so just to see I put it up on craigslist for 3500. I already have 3 inquiries. Part of me knows the long journey ahead and $ to make this car right - which is quite out of reach at the moment. But, its my car right now, and I still care about it as I’ve worked really hard on it.
Not sure if I need to get out while I can or keep grinding away.
If I were to get a 2 door Cadillac then atleast on the back end it would be worth a lot more.
As far as modernizing the drive train, It seemed to really wind out 4th today on the highway and work hard to maintain 65. Dont forget brand new this big car only had 160hp. The RPM’s on the highway were much higher than I am around town, it was a little uncomfortable. But, maybe I just wasn’t used to it.
Remember, in the 50’s, the interstate highway system was just starting to get built. These cars were not really built for highway speeds, so trying to push it to 65 may have helped push to aged transmission over the edge. A modern drivetrain with an overdrive transmission would keep the RPM’s down. I had an old truck with no overdrive and it would be turning at around 3,000 RPM at 55. My newer truck with overdrive turns 2,200 RPM at 70.
I’d call around and see if I could find a local shop that is able to handle the transmission. They’ve got to be easier than dealing with the complicated newer ones. The difficult thing is locating parts, even gaskets and seals. But, there should be some suppliers around.
@Fender1325–I think you dodged the bullet on this one. However, I do wonder about your Cadillac straining at 65. I have ridden in several Cadillacs from the early 1950s. These cars would easily hit 95 and would cruise effortlessly at 65. You may want to see if your brakes are dragging. I had a 1954 Buick Special with a 264 cubic inch V-8 engine and a manual transmission. The engine was rated at 143 horsepower and would hit 80 mph in second gear. I often cruised what few interstates there were in the early to mid 1960s at 75-80 mph in high gear. The engine was not straining at all.
The HydraMatic in your Cadillac is a 4 speed unit. It should shift through all 4 speeds. If it is not going into top speed (direct drive), there may be a problem in the transmission. Another possibility is that the fluid coupling between the engine and transmission is slipping too much.
The HydraMatic on your Cadillac first appeared in the 1940 Oldsmobile. I think Cadillac offered it in 1941. It was introduced on the Pontiac in 1948 and was quite popular. Nash bought Hydramatic transmissions from GM beginning in 1950 and adapted that transmission to a closed driveshaft (torque tube). Hudson and Kaiser used the GM Hydramatic beginning in 1951. Even Ford motor company offered the GM Hydramatic on its Lincoln beginning in mid-1949 and even after developing an automatic for the Ford and Mercury line which became available in 1951, the GM Hydramatic was still used in the Lincoln.
The point is that the GM Hydramatic was a popular transmission and repair parts are probably available. The GM Hydramatic was altered for the 1952 models and became known as the dual range Hydramatic. This allowed the transmission to remain in 3rd speed unless one went above 70 mph where it did drop into 4th. This makes me wonder if the transmission on your Cadillac ever reached 4th gear. I don’t know if the dual range Hydramatic can be substituted for the transmission on your Cadillac. However, I would guess that many of the internal rebuilt parts are the same. If you could substitute a dual range Hydramatic, GMC offered the dual range Hydramatic on its pickup trucks beginning in 1953 and Chevrolet followed suit with the optional Hydramatic in 1954.
These Hydramatic transmissions were quite rugged. There was a company, I think called B and W that rebuilt these transmissions for drag racing back in the 1950s. These units were called the B and W Hydrostick transmissions. This transmission competed well with manual transmissions on the drag strip back in those days.
I have always thought that if P.T. Keller who headed Chrysler when the 1951 Chrysler introduced the 331 “hemi” engine had not been so bull-headed and bought the GM Hydramatic for the Chrysler instead of the terrible “lift and clunk” transmissions, that 1951 Chrysler would have been a real winner. Ford bought the Hydramatic for use in the Lincoln back in those days.
@Triedaq for whatever its worth the following year cads had a lot more power. My 1950 331 v8 was factory rated at 160 (and its now a tired engine) and the following ones had like 230 or something along those lines. I do know my hydramatic is a single range from being told that by a hydramatic specialist I spoke with on the phone a few weeks ago.