I am sure this question has been asked a time or two before, but I havent had any luck finding anything. First , I am sure I am nuts to consider a swap this way. Fuel economy is pretty important where I am going with this van. I know the C6 is pretty tough. I have access to a AOD from another van pretty reasonably, and wondered if this would be a practical swap.

I dont know how durable the AOD is compared to the C6. The van will tow a trailer from time to time, but will mostly haul people. I am doing a few mild performance improvements to the engine, like headers, head work & a performance chip. It has 3.54 gears, is a 3/4 ton. Will the AOD physically bolt in place of the C6 behind my EFI 351w in this 88 van?I know the kick down cable is critical & must be properly adjusted. I will have a "parts van" with all the linkages & cables available. Are there any electrical connections to the transmission to be dealt with? Like the lock up, etc?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

yes it will bolt right up, being you have a donor you are in good shape with the cable you need for the TV and drive shaft. You will need to change the flywheel, if you have a 351 be sure you use a 351 flywheel for the AOD. The c-6 uses a different flywheel than the AOD and 302's have a different balance than the 351.

 

Thanks Double for the info. I am not surprised about the flywheel, but a little about the driveshaft. I am sure you saved me from having to do it twice because of the flywheel. I am also glad to know not to use the 302 flywheel. I am finding this website contains a wealth of information & is going to save me a lot of grief & mistakes! Thanks guys!

Do you know if the AOD is lockup or non-lockup?

 

the AOD is a Lock-up, as for the electronic controls, im in the middle of figuring that out myself, i put a different computer in my truck thats ment to go with a 351EFI/c6 combo, my truck is back in the the trans shop after it stoped shifting easily (started acting like i had the gas peddle meshed to the floor). trying to find out if the computer has any electric control on it.

 

The AOD transmission has no electronic controls. The nearest thing to lockup in an AOD is that the direct input shaft couples solid in the torque converter. Third gear gets about 50% of the engine power from the direct shaft and 50% through the torque converter. 4th gear (overdrive) is 100% direct drive.

 

CLARIFICATION:

Third gear use100% drive from direct shaft, it don't use converter. But Ford use a tecnique to produce a controlled slipage if RPM are lower than 1500 wich let the engine work in a better range to produce faster speed change without shift to second gear... but converter works in firts, second and reverse.

Regards;

Note: I did same upgrade to my F150 1986 2 years ago. Iy someone need specific information just write to my email address.

Regards;

 

you know thats what i thought, i think the shop thats working on my trans is confused. thanks for the info.

 

 

Do you guys think this AOD would be durable enough to use in this big van? Is the AOD a C6 with an overdrive, or a competley different trans? It will tow a trailer from time to time, and climb mountains.

 

i think it will take it preaty well, just get yourself a huge tranny cooler. and no the AOD and C-6 shift completly different, the c-6 as you know runs completly off the vacume press while the aod is a cable oporated.

 

The AOD has become the 4R70W (electronic), the C6 with overdrive was the E4OD which is now the 4R100.
The 70 in 4R70W and the 100 in 4R100 are an indicator of the capacity of those transmissions so the 4R70W is about 70% the capacity of the 4R100. You might relate those numbers back to the AOD and C6 to indicate durability. In my opinion the C6 is just about bulletproof.

 

yes the AOD is weaker than the C6, but i really dont think that is much of a problem. If it where me i would just put a shift improver in the AOD and put the biggest tranny cooler you can find on it and it will go where you want it to go.