KNUT

Hans 1965. That plug is only for pressure tests. I think your transmission oil looks strange, could it be water infiltrated? The oil is not supposed to be “cloudy”, but clear, though red. You have a drain plug in bottom front of oil pan. In order to drain out all oil, you also need to drain the converter. A total of 10-11 liters.

Mr. Reed. Very good, indeed. Fatsco is really good with those old automatic transmissions. I think they have piles of them, and are selling high quality new rebuilding kits.

Yes, I would be surprised if Fatsco does not have them. Postage from here is excessive, so try Fatsco first.

Mr. Reed. Here you have photos of the bolts. However, since I am over here in Europe, you should contact Fatsco in New Jersey. Ask for Mike.

There are two types for 57-60 Buicks, Saginaw and Spicer. You may look into the catalog of CARS or OlsBuickparts, and you see the difference and you can order from there which one you need.

Sorry, no, they are higher on the Super/Roadmaster cars, though looks pretty much the same.

Ok. I check tomorrow. We are 6-8 hours ahead of you here.

Mr. Reed. If I read you correctly, you pushed the bolt in and “it fell into the transmission”. Well, that is not possible, it can only fall in between the converter pump and bell housing. You should be able to shake it out while turning the converter. Those depicted bolts without nuts, are those you use for fixing the converter to the flex wheel. If the bolt is still there when starting up, severe damage will occur. I may not understand you correctly. I have bolts, if still needed, will check their length tomorrow. The length you gave, is that total length or the shaft length of the bolt?

I think you need to find more closely where in the drive train the play actually is. It is one U-joint inside the torque ball at the rear end of the transmission, which normally save well, unless the fixing bolt of the u-joint have clogged the oil passage and no longer lubricate the u-joint. Jack it up from the floor, put in park and turn wheels back and forth and try to observe where the play is. It can be poor differential bearings. You have to take off the rear cover to inspect, while turning wheels back and forth. Just an idea….

Hi from Norway. The 59 is definitely different. You may use 48 to 52 bolts, but still you have short and long through those years. They used the short ones if you did not have balance weights and long ones if you had balance weights on the converter pump. I have these if you can’t find them over there. Take a measure of the bolt length you have.

Yes, you cannot pull the TC out (like more modern cars can). You need to take off all the bolts and then the converter cover. First possible leak point can be the gasket between the cover and converter pump (no o-ring on this early 51). Take out the respective turbines and finally the converter pump. Then you see the front oil pump and its seal, which is second leak point.

Hi. If you are selling out parts from a 55 Century, do you have a LH front seat side cover (plastic)?

Hi from Norway. I just saw this thread. Hope you are still on. I have been doing these Dynaflows for decades over here. The 55 came with a totally revised torque converter versus the 53/54. Inter Alia, they introduced a sprag in the converter sun gear. However, the sprag tended to “flip over”, which resulted in that the sun gear did not lock in the anti clockwise direction. This was critical for accelerating from 0, making the car very sluggish up to about 20-30 miles, and from there it should act normal. The service bulletins proposed to install the 56 sprag and two spacers in order to replace the 55 sprag.

Yes, absolutely correct that they can move sideways. Beware the markings when installing the propeller shaft into the U-joint. Described in the 57 work shop manual.

Leif. Thank you, I will try that.