Manual to Auto

[Airfireman]

Gday all,

Showed off my FC to a mate last night who is a car/bike nut like me a he suggested to fit a powerglide as the car is LPG only and says the engine would run smoother through the torgue convertor

To do this im guessing I would need the EK auto steering column (I don't really want to cut a hole in the floor)
 and brake pedal, tailshaft.

Has anyone fitted this mod, i never gave it thought before as the novelty of the "3 on the tree is pretty cool"

My FC currently has a red motor, but i am tossing up between keeping or returning it a grey motor?

Thanks

Tim

[RET]

As someone who owned an FE and converted it from 4-speed to PowerGlide, let me be the first to say: "Don't do it".

PowerGlides are more or less bulletproof, but they cost a fortune to get rebuilt, and they are hard on fuel and hard on brakes: with only two gears they're thirsty, and with virtually no kick-down you get no engine-braking benefit.

In any case, you'll need to put a bigger tunnel in - no auto will fit in the standard grey crashbox tunnel. Whether you fit a larger brake pedal is up to you, but you'll definitely need to alter your tailshaft as well.

I subsequently converted my FE to Trimatic, and to be honest I never looked back. Whilst the PRNDL of an EK auto column won't be exactly right, it's probably close enough. The selectors of a PowerGlide are on the wrong side, so connecting it up to a column shift is difficult - the connecting rods from a HR/HK/HT won't suit the shape of the FE/FC firewall/tunnel. (Mine was floor-shift, so I didn't have that particular problem).

If you're thinking of an auto conversion, get your car/bike nut mate to do it for you, or just go Trimatic and we shall never speak of this again

Oh, and Grey + LPG + PowerGlide? I think you'd be sorry.

cheers
RET

[Errol62]

Had a blue motor and trimatic in my EK and was very happy. 3.08 LSD and 22mpg back and forth to work on the 'spressway. I've heard they go well behind a grey but gas usually means 20% power loss unless you go for high compression. It would be pretty sluggish.


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[mcl1959]

Yep I'm with Richard, Trimatic over Poweglide every time. I ran an FE with Trimatic. I used an EJ auto column with a home made prindle made out of a Torana one. This kept the gears on the column as you want.

Ken

[Airfireman]

Thanks for info guys

Ok,,,,stop thinking of the powerglide and I was thinking of the trimatic, would it bolt up to a grey motor ok??

Hydromatic trans are they ok??

Thanks

Tim

[RET]

A Hydra will cost you a fortune for zero benefit over a Trimatic. No good can come of that.

Go for a ride in an EK with a Hydramatic, you'll soon give the idea away.

[Airfireman]

Ken : What tailshaft did you use for the Trimatic FE??

Is there a bolt on that is available or did you have to get a shaft shortened??

RET : Ok Im sold on the Trimatic, how much work on the tunnel is required to fit??

Appreciated

Tim

[Errol62]

Used a hydramatic tail shaft in the EK. Bolt in fit.


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[mcl1959]

I had a tail shaft shortened to suit, but for the floor I used the entire front floor and underbody support member from an EK auto body shell. I cut the whole floor out right up to the seam joint in the firewall and back to the hump in the middle of the floor. Once the new EK floor was all welded in, it looked like a factory made auto floor for an FE! Everything matched up and fitted perfectly.
The reason I did this was because the engineer was fine with the trans mount being supported on the EK underfloor member as long as the original EK top reinforcement was used over the top of the tunnel.
Ken

[mph]

Gday,

Whilst i have a fb i presume its all the same or close,
I ditched my manual box for a trimatic ,finding a ek auto column was almost impossible , so with copying the idea my old did to a fb ute a few years back which is still working fine today.so with the manual column i removed one of the gear rods and brackets from the shaft and left just one hanging out the column just like the auto column have, up near the fire wall still on the column i made locking mech to work with locking in park ,rev or drive and pushing it from 1 to 2nd to third with out pulling the lever in as say a hq trimatic does,with a simple method of flat bar on the colum  and a steel rod / pointer on a shaped flat bar welded to the bit that pokes out the shaft that the gear rod goes into, the small steel rod pointer dropping into holes as it rotates around. felt normal from the drivers seat and using the manual gear rod it needed some bending and worked fine.
You could also get a lock out gate from a ek ej column and thread and tap it to the manual column or a hq trimatic gate with some small mods depending how handy you are with stuff.
 
Pros- $0 to make.
Cons- no start lock out.
        no little light for the quadrant.
For the quadrant you can get a ej eh metal frame but they need some massaging to fit over the earlier columns
You can get clear oem shaped ek quadrants from a guy called Roger, he supplies you with quality stick on letters as well so you can match park, rev n ,3,2,1 correctly etc
He is the guy who supplies trimatic to grey conversions i believe

If the fe fc has the same length floor as the fb you can use a lj torrie tail shaft thats what i used.

Luck had it i came across a ek auto column and bolted it in
That worked with the trimatic perfect and ive hooked up the lock out and light.

[Errol62]

EK hydramatic tail shaft bolts up to trimatic, M20 & M21 4 speed and all syncro three speed if you can get one. FE through EK all have the same floor pan including suspension mounting points. On my EK manual sedan I fabricated a similar setup to the auto floor plan but on the van project I'm looking for an auto floor to graft in. Not much left of the origin floor anyway.


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