[AMC-List] AMCer's Opinions: Survivor/Vintage vs. Restored (FMX in AMC)

[<francis.swygert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Date: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 09:33 AM
From: jackbarncord@xxxxxxx

I picked up my girlfriend on Friday night, it was summer the year of our
Lord
1973.  What to do, what to do?  Go cruising like most other Friday
nights and
end up at our usual make out spot?  Hey, I have an idea, lets take the
Hornet
down to the shop, pull the engine and clean the engine compartment!  You
ready
to get dirty?  She agreed and sat patiently on the parts counter while I
pulled 
out the 304 w/Ford FMX attached.  I cleaned the engine/trans while she
cleaned
the compartment.  We took a couple breaks, but I had her home by
midnight and
the Hornet had a sparkling engine, fresh coat of satin black where I
thought it 
looked best and the engine compartment hadn't been that clean since I
had
purchased the car.
-----------------------------------

Okay, this is a pet peeve of mine, but that's NOT a Ford FMX
transmission. It's a Borg Warner model 4x. I know it takes an FMX
rebuild kit, but only partially. The FMX valve body is different, and
the pan gasket as well. The internal parts (clutches and bands, drums,
gearing, etc.) all interchange -- at least most do, though gearing may
be different. The reason is the FMX is a modification of the Borg
Warner. In the 50s BW and Studebaker collaborated on an auto trans
design. Ford joined the partnership later, and Stude dropped out a year
or two after Ford joined in (just before Packard bought Stude out, so I
think it was financial reasons Stude had to leave). Fords part of the
deal was to have a license to produce the transmissions, but for cost
savings many of the machined parts were to be interchangeable. So the BW
and FMX are "brothers", but not the same. I'm not sure if the Ford case
will bolt to a BW bell housing or not, but they do have different pan
gaskets IIRC... But I might be getting the FMX confused with the
European version of the BW-35. That model uses the same internal parts
(and rebuild kit) as the AMC version but a different pan gasket. I do
know for sure that the FMX has a totally different valve body that will
not fit the BW model, which indicates a different main case. 


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