Antique & Classic Cars Blog
Butch Cassidy and the Four-Speed ‘box
Thursday, November 29th, 2007If each of us has a little Butch Cassidy, a little Jesse James, deep in our psyche yearning for a chance to “take the money and run,” that moment comes for the classic-car wrencher when you leave a salvage yard with a part so rare you spent the previous night wondering if they had it right, or if someone will realize the treasure in their stockroom and vanish with it before you arrive.
 Last of the wrecking-yard 215 V8 four speeds? |
I have enjoyed this feeling twice–each time I had to turn around repeatedly on the way home and make sure what I had hunted, found, cautiously approached the yard with a poker face and a pittance to buy, really was in the back of my vehicle…mine, mine, mine. The first time was when I left Rohner’s in Willmar a half dozen years ago with a 4-bbl 215-ci aluminum V8 engine that I had found and pulled myself (with a strong-backed friend) and which they sold me for 300 bucks. This morning it was a four-speed manual transmission for the same motor, scooped up from Elmer’s, a wrecking yard in Fountain City, Wisconsin.
 Shifter and linkage still in place four decades on. Nice. |
Manual transmissions were rare on the Buick Special/Skylark (and same-motor-sharing Olds F85) and most were 3-speeds. The 4-speed was an option that only a few performance enthusiasts threw down for. The number of those transmissions remaining in salvage yards 45 years later is very, very–VERY–small.
 The bellhousing I sourced with a hunt of its own is really for a 3-speed…. |
Driving to the yard I had three hopes of varying improbability. Level one was that this really was what they thought it was and not a three-speed mis-identified. My second, less likely, wish was that it wasn’t a bare transmission but included the shifter with linkage. Third–the dream-on, get real, what have you been smoking–level was that, on top of the shifter and linkage, it would also have the bellhousing.
 While the bellhousing sits in place properly, the 3-speed holes are too narrow for the 4-speed flange. |
Fountain city nestles in a beautiful stretch of western Wisconsin between the mighty Mississippi and hills a few degrees shy of cliffs. Entering town I wondered where between the water and the raucous incline they were storing thousands of old cars. The answer is that the yard lies above town in a comparatively flat stretch of rolling hills and farmland. In fact, on climbing the hill you get the impression all of Wisconsin sits hundreds of feet above sea level except for the narrow ribbon of shoreline carved down by the Mississippi.
 Should be possible with a Sharpie, hacksaw, die grinder and some aluminum stock to make the missing pieces and weld them in place, then drill and tap for bolts from the transmission. You need a few challenges to keep things interesting. |
There I found the stuff of dreams–hundreds of cars slumbering in the grass, waiting to connect their unplucked treasures with the shade-tree and classics mechanics seeking the out-of-stock, out-of-production, seldom-seen, and totally rare items essential to somebody’s project.
Inside, successful yards have a modern, computerized, Office-Deport-furnished feel at odds with the throwback vehicles that weather the elements outdoors. I casually told the man up front what I had come for, “a 4-speed transmission for a 1963 Buick Special.” I tried to say it exactly as I’d say, “an alternator for a Dodge Neon.” He was the man I had spoken to and he treated the request as any other. I handed him a credit card and went back for a look.
Yeah, baby! The bellhousing bolt holes on the four-speed are wider than a three-speed’s and this was the genuine article. It bore no bellhousing, but the shifter and linkage were more important because I had a bellhousing already and they, to my good fortune, were attached and complete. I tried my best to eye the part with disdain as though maybe they should knock off a few bucks, but inside I just wanted to close the deal before somebody realized I was getting out the door with the rarest part in their inventory.
Back at the desk, I signed off for $110, then went out to the lot and backed up to the bay where I’d eyed my prize. A yard hand set it in the car and I drove off.
No one chased me. No manager came squealing behind to tell me there’d been a big mistake. It was mine. And I was gone.
Looking at it here, you may think I’ve inhaled too much gas or old oil, but if that’s the case you’ve stumbled upon the classics car blog by mistake. A real fan will understand that driving away with your rare old part, the salvage yard shrinking in your rearview mirror, is just like galloping from a Wild West holdup, hoping the marshal has a slow horse and lousy aim.
9 Responses to "Butch Cassidy and the Four-Speed ‘box"
Do you remember when french lake used to be like that? the old man(Floyd) would sit behind the counter rolling that old cigar around in his mouth judging if you had enough cash in your pocket to warrant letting you go out in the yard and pick the parts you needed?
That’s a cool image but it predates my visits to French Lake. I’ve been to yards, though, where the owner views the cars as his property as much as his business. I treat these things like art museums and I love to wander around checking out the cars. I never, ever “shop” at retail stores; I only cruise in, knowing what I need, buy it and get out. But in junkyards, I do shop a little; if there’s a rare part in there that interests me but that I didn’t come for, I’ll buy it–if the owner lets me.
I had a strange experience at a closed yard a few years back. It had only closed recently and the gates were still open. I went in and there was no one around, just some mean looking dogs on long chains. I kept going deeper and deeper onto the property looking for anyone I could ask whether they were open and I might have a look around. But eventually I got the strange feeling they didn’t want to be found, that the yard was definitely closed, that car parts sales were no longer the way the people there–there were a couple small, rundown places that probably served as homes–made their living and that however they did do it, I didn’t want to know. (There were a couple buildings with some smoke coming out of them and I wondered what activity was making smoke in a closed salvage yard where no people were to be seen.) Anyway, I turned around and walked back with a quick step.
Most wrecking yards with classic cars are great places where I can spend a whole afternoon gawking and scheming about new projects.
When I first updated my cutlass to a 4-speed, I only had a 3-speed bell housing. We machined a piece of 1/4 plate to fit the flanges. The plate was bolted to the bell housing by running the bolts from the inside of the bell housing into threaded holes in the plate. The tips of the bolts were ground flush. The tranny was then bolted to the plate with bolts and self locking nuts. Later I procurred a 4-speed bell housing from D&D in Almonte MI and gave them the plate for a pattern. If anyone needs this adaptor plate, I think if you contact Mark or Dan, they can probably supply it, especially since the 4-speed bell housings are becoming so rare. The 4-speed bell housing also worked perfectly when I upgraded to a t5 5-speed.
Warren
Thanks Warren. Someone told me D&D had a 3-to-4-speed adapter; sounds like it’s yours. I’m scheming to do a Monster Garage-style fabrication job on my 3-speed bell to make it as close in appearance to a factory 4-speed as possible. While you may have seen my post setting forth this plan on the Britishv8.org website, here it is for fabrication-minded readers:
1) Place a 4-speed mounting-face template on top of the 3-speed face (treating it as a 2D image).
2) Mark the “missing” 4-speed-surface metal on the 3-speed bellhousing.
3) Cut out those areas and file all edges to be perpendicular to the transmission mounting surface. (This leaves the 3-speed mostly intact, for strength and squareness.)
4) Fashion (cut, file) the missing pieces from a suitable block of aluminum. The bottom two pieces will be easier because the flange’s side is flat (straight). The pieces to widen the top two holes will either have to be filed in a semicircular fashion around the original bolt-hole area, or that area cut out too.
5) Set the new pieces in place to replicate a factory four-speed mounting surface.
6) Weld from the inside and outside, grind the welds for acceptable esthetics, then make a light pass on a surface grinder for a dead level mating surface.
7) Mark, drill and tap mounting holes.
Kris
If you love wandering around yards filled with classic cars as much as I, you could spend an entire day in Weekly’s in Grand Forks
Thanks for this tip, Frank. I’m just like you. I’m as excited to wake up and head to a good salvage yard filled with classics as I am to make for the airport for a vacation.
Finding that rare part still bolted to the car the manufacturer built it into decades ago is a thrill. Getting it all cleaned up and repaired, if applicable, and bolting it into a road-going vehicle for more service is fun, round 2. I’ll check on Weekly’s. Might just be my first visit to Grand Forks.
Wait til summer!!!
And there often is too much mud/water to trudge through in the spring for it to be any fun then.
Pick a dry day though, and it’s like taking a trip through time. I’m surprised they don’t charge admission! Better than paying to see a movie in my book.
One thing about summer and junkyards here is ticks. Several years ago, a buddy and I headed up to a yard in Spooner, Wisconsin, for a story I was writing for Drvie Time about wrecking yards.
My friend and I cruised the yard, found some cool parts including a Karmann Ghia logo for his wife\’s convertible, then went to another roadside yard we found in rural Wisconsin.
When we got back in the truck, I drove about a quarter mile before my friend Richard squawked Whoa!. I pulled over and we both lept out of the cab, wildly brushing ticks off our clothing. Must have been a dozen on each of us. Don\’t know what patch of long grass caused this, but these little bloodsuckers were having their version of Woodstock within.
I still love yards, but I don\’t wade into tall grass anymore.
Winter traipsing has two advantages: first, no bugs. Second, with the weeds dead and the leaves down, it\’s much easier to hunt down cars that might have what you need. Downsides of course are snow, when present–re-hiding what the fall uncovered, and the reminder of how much less fun it is to get your hands on a rare part when the part is 5 degrees Fahrenheit and the tools you need to remove it soon are too.
[…] wrecking yard transmission often doesn’t come with the shifter. The ‘63 Buick Special T-10 four-speed I scooped up from a Wisconsin yard did. While I have no immediate plans to use it–Hurst, […]
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MotorMouth Kris Palmer, freelance auto writer and editor, blogs about vintage cars, the collectible auto scene and just about anything else that goes vroom.
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