[Shawn F.]

Well guys I have put the wagon on a little bit of a hold after spending the $2000 I had put to the side for it and cant really go anywhere right now with it. I am about to have another $800-$1200 for it in a month or so but am trying to plan out what to do next. I really want to do the body work right and have the entire thing media blasted, epoxy primed, and then inside sprayed with Lizard skin insulation and sound deadener along with bed lining the under side. As far as the drive train goes my end plan is to get a 200-4r from Bowtieoverdrives.com which in total is about $2400 shipped to my door plus a little here and there for brackets, cross member and linkage I'm sure. I do not and will not have the money for that upgrade anytime soon and instead of letting the car sit, I figured I'd use the perfectly good and very low milage TH350 tranny I have sitting around in the garage for now. This leads to my question...
If I throw the TH350 in it for now to get it going and drive in the meantime while I gather the funds for a overdrive unit, then when I do order the overdrive unit, will it be much work to switch over? Right now the car has a Powerglide in it but plan to throw this TH350 in it unless it's better to just leave the powerglide? Only reason I am switching to over drive later is for fuel milage. I am hoping with the 327 in it now or the 350 I am building in the garage to swap in later that I can get around 18-20 MPG. I know with a TH350 and taller tires that will not happen with a wagon. I just dont want to make more work for myself than I already have to. If it will be easier to just let the car sit for a year until I get a overdrive unit and put a tranny in once instead of pulling and putting in a tranny 2 or 3 times then I may do that.
Thanks a lot for any information and advice here!

 

[jbon64]

the 200-r4 is the same length as a th350 . the only difference will be the cross member and a TV cable instead of a kick down on the th350. you also have to wire 12 volts for the lock up on the 200.if you are using a column shift you will have to finagle the shift linkage a bit which wasnt all that difficult. overall it's a pretty easy swap. i'm running a used 200-4r behind a 305 and get an average 18mpg , the best i got was 25 all high way miles.

 

[Shawn F.]

Great, thanks for the information. As for column shift. I have one but right now with the powerglide the PO put in some horrible looking golf club as the shifter and it broke off. I need to figure out how to hook up the stock linkage and if I remember correct it hits the headers or exhaust and I do not think it's all there either. I'd much rather have the column shift hooked back up though and it's something I need to work on getting fixed.

 

[Dan_Lebherz]

B/4 you get the 2004R from BTO, I'd sugges checking out Extreme Automatics near Cincinnati. I had them re-build my BTO trans last year.
It is really good now!

 

[Shawn F.]

Sounds good I will check them out and see what they offer, thanks!