Hi All. Am a newbie on the board but have been hanging around for a while. Posted an intro in the general section but will do same here. Am just shy of 50 years old happily married with 3 daughters (all of whom love the old iron). Have had a lot of fords in the past, everything from 57 meteor for dirt track stock car racing in the 60s, thru mustangs, Galaxies, Fairlanes, 1970 1/2 Falcon (351c 4speed favorite car ever), Cougar convertible, and more Ford trucks than i can count easily. Presently run a 91 f150 XLT with the 5.8 as everyday driver and have 1956 Mercury 1/2 ton near completion. 56 is running 351c 4v with 4speed o/d toploader. Body is completely stock except for 3" wider rear fibreglas fenders. Suspension consists of front clip from 1972 ch*** p/u (installed by previous owner)and custom built rear spring mounts that are 9 position adjustable. Rear is 9" with 3.91 gears (non locking). Running open rear to compensate for possibility of blowing clutch or tranny (lost a c4 due to posi and 12" treadface worth of traction) or twisting off driveshaft or u-joints. (done that before, not fun). Besides, I am more interested in driving and enjoying than racing. Am now looking for rear bumper to go on the 56. Are there any later model bumpers that are the same as the 53-56 rears? Have seen some on early broncos that look like they are the same. Also stepsides upto the mid 70s appear to be the same. Anybody know for sure?? Will be around here and putting my 2cents worth in time to time. Later pops

 

Hey Pops what did the 4spd o/d toploader come out of. I have a 4spd toploader in my 61. I think 4th is an o/d but haven't counted turns to make sure. It came out of an 84 mustang GT, it has an aluminum case and the shifter is like a 5spd on the tailshaft housing. There is a made in Mexico stamp on the top cover. The id tag is missing so I can't give #s. The reason I think it's an o/d is my rpm seem alot lower at freeway speed than when it had a 292 and t98. I'm running a 302 with this tranny and the rear end hasn't been touched.

 

Hey, Cobraguy.
I presently have 3 toploader o/d's. 1 came from a 1981 f150 with 302, 1 came from a early 80's mustang and the other , I picked up at a swap meet. 2 of them are actually SROD transmissions. These have no linkage on the side of the tranny case, they are operated by a rod that travels inside a tube from the shifter mounted near the tailshaft into the trans case frome the rear. Both of these are aluminum case trannies. The other is the traditional toploader design with a hurst manual shifter and linkage on the side of the case. Do not use the SROD for high horsepower applications altho street cruising will be fine. I have no idea how easy it is to rebuild the SROD but imagine a good tranny shop should be able to get necessary parts. A good source of info may be Dan Williams Toploaders (email;www.toploadertransmissions.com), he may have info. I believe that these trannies had a couple of different o/d ratios. 1 was .76 to 1, the other was (i think) .82 to 1. These may be a bit inaccurate as i am going by memory and can't readily find where i read that from. One problem that i have is that the SROD trannies tend to get very sloppy in the shifter. Other than that, no probs. Later pops