1934 Ford Chassis - Ultimate Underpinnings Part 3

As our faithful readers know, over the past few months we've been assembling a chassis from Pete & Jake's to slide under one of Kelvin Waddington's new, all-steel '34 Ford touring bodies. We're just about done, and soon the bare-metal beauty will be leaving on the Vintage Air leg of the Road Tour.

As we've said all along, our intent has been to build a down-to-earth, traditional foundation for the tub that will cart us around the country to various events. As usual, we'll be on a tight schedule and have deadlines to meet, so we need a reliable car that can make the road disappear in the mirrors. We won't have time to sort out the car on the road or travel in the slow lane.

Engine And TransmissionFor the same reasons so many street rodders do it, we chose a small-block Chevy to power the '34. And, why not? They're light, powerful, reasonably priced, and fit an early Ford like they were made for it; and besides, we had one. This particular 350 came to us by way of staffer Jim Rizzo. It was one of the subjects in his "Crate Creations" series featured in STREET RODDER in late 2007 and early 2008. Riz started with a Chevy long-block assembly good for 290 hp and managed to make 325 hp in the end.

With the powerplant picked out, the next decision was what transmission to use. We settled on GM's 200-4R for a variety of reasons. Introduced in 1982, these four-speed automatic overdrives are compact at 27 11/16 inches long, don't require a computer, have lock-up converters, and best of all, the gear ratios are ideally split as follows:

We turned to Zack Farah and his crew at Gearstar Performance for the tranny build. The Gearstar team has years of experience with the 200-4R, a huge inventory of quality replacement parts, and a number of specialty pieces they've developed to enhance the transmission's life expectancy and boost its horsepower capacity.

While Gearstar's reputation for building quality transmissions is well known and speaks for itself, customer service is a big priority. About the only thing they don't do is come to your garage and put it in. Each transmission is built by one technician, start to finish, and then dyno-tested. If, for any reason, customers have questions about the transmission, the person who knows best-the one who built it-will be available on the tech line to help.

As most street rodders know, one of the issues with the 200-4R (and the 700-R4) is proper adjustment of the throttle valve (TV) cable. Problems with misadjusted TV cables range from poorly timed shifts, which are annoying, to slipping clutches, which can lead to total transmission failure. To combat the problem, Gearstar includes what it calls a fail-safe feature in its valvebodies. If the TV cable is misadjusted, the shift points may be drawn out to indicate a problem exists, but no damage to the transmission will result.

According to Gearstar's installation instructions, when adjusted properly, the First to Second upshift with light to medium throttle should take place between 21-26 mph; Second to Third between 32-40 mph; and Third to Fourth should take place between 45-50 mph. Keep in mind that the final gear ratio and speedometer calibration may cause some variation.

Another test Gearstar recommends is to stop the car and put the shifter in the Low 2 position. Accelerate moderately from a standing start, and floor the throttle as soon the transmission shifts into Second. The transmission should drop back into First gear; the TV cable is adjusted properly if it does. If not, tighten the cable 1/8-inch at a time until it operates as described.