I have a 63 4106 8v71 and a 4 spd. Thinking about going to auto trans. Can anyone give me some info. Approx $$$$$, what trans is recomended? Talk to me.
Howard Berman
V730 Allison Gary Nickerson, Lake Havasu Az 1 928 230 5035 $8000 includes trans, adapters, labor, the works..>>>Dan (Check to see if you have the 5 core radiator or the 7 core,,an automatic will dump much more heat into your cooling system)
I installed the biggest Griffin cooler available under our 47 Clipper. Mounted it ahead of the axle and it has the shroud with fan on it. Trans temp cycles between 147 and 170. Fan does not come on at all on the interstate or local continuous driving. Fan comes on about 2 minutes after coming to a complete stop. The Allison 1000 just does not seem to make much heat. Don't know if the 730 is the same way. Our GCW is approx. 19,000 lbs. Don't know what the 4106 GVW is but remote cooling may make more sense. Griffin was unable to calculate the size we needed so I just went for the biggest.
The V730 generates a bunch of heat, your temp would be to cold of operating temp for a V730
Our bus came with 8V-71 and V730. When I turbo'd and air to air intercooled the engine, I also enlarged the radiator from 5 row straight fin to 6 row serpentine fin. To further combat the heat, I installed an air to oil transmission cooler with thermostatically controlled electric fan that is plumbed between the transmission and the normal transmission shell cooler. This takes a bunch of heat out of the transmission fluid before hitting the shell cooler, taking alot of heat strain off the radiator.
When the outside temp gets over 90, is when I use the misters on the radiator. I originally bought 15 misters from Home Depot and just plumbed it into the water system with a electric water solenoid I could switch from the dash. The 15 misters worked OK, but still had to stop to let it cool in the mountains-albeit a much shorter cool off period. The real solution came when I drilled out two of the lowest misters to 1/16". Now it really dumps water. I turn on the misters at 190 degrees and no matter the temp outside (108 is the hottest I've seen) the temp pulls back down in about 2 minutes. Good Luck, TomC
If this mod is even remotely in your future, don,t dally..The parts are getting very scarce and hard to find.>>>Dan
If a decent conversion, the auto will be a good investment when it comes time to sell it. Very prefer a manual transmission any more. Good investment means you'll loose less (relatively)money with an automatic.
Yes, the chances of successfully selling a bus with a manual (particularly the 4 speed Spicer) are getting slimmer & slimmer. Very few young people are exposed to manuals in their cars, let alone a non-synchromesh in a truck or bus. Even tractor-trailers are being equipped with automatic shifting, with clutches, and without.
You can buy a bus with the V730 and 8v71 pretty darn cheap, a lot of buses used it like Flx, Grumnn, AM,Novas,GM the list goes on .
They are not hard to do if you have all the parts , like the flywheel shiftier and the bellhousing you start piecing one together it gets expensive in a hurry.Buy you a 2500 dollar parts bus and go for it
If you buy a GM, it will help you see how much bulkhead you need to remove for clearance.