Hi folks,

 

Nice car! Since your car was restored it looks like someone may have swapped the dash bezel with one from a Cutlass which would have just the 2 spd (jet-away) trans, maybe the original was cracked or the finish was bad. It could be from a '66 also. All '66s,even 442s used the 2 spd trans. Can you "feel" the detents for all 3 of the gears in the column,does it shift 3 times when you're driving it?. Can you get a pic of the trans pan & put it up on the site?? I'm sure someone on this site has an extra indicator lens or a bezel that you could buy.

 

Hi Rob,
Thanks for the compliment on the car, I love it so far, although I've only had it out 3-times since the bad weather has set in here in St. Louis. To be honest, I have never manually cycled through the other gear positions past Drive to feel for both a 2nd and Low, but I'm pretty sure I've felt it shift twice, 1st to 2nd, and 2nd to 3rd when driving it. I'll have to check both of these points more closely. I have compared the exterior appearance of my transmission (including pan) to pictures of TH400s found online and they look the same, but I am no expert. I will try to get a couple pictures of the pan area up in the near term. The headers get in the way of getting an easy picture/s, and space is tight in my garage now as far as being able to jack it up.

One other point, right below this response, in the Related Topics section, there is a thread about a 67 Cutlass/442 related to the gear indicator light on a center console shift car. In this string the owner mentions that his console shifter only has P-R-N-D-L positions, similar to mine. I am still wondering if this is just how they were produced when the TH400s first came out in 67? Maybe Olds didn't have 3 position bezels ready to go, or never intended to put them in. I can't remember the exact year/make/model, but I'm pretty sure I remember seeing other classic cars that had 3-speed automatics, but only had D-L indicator positions on the dash?
Thanks,
Ralph

 

On the related post.......he never really indicated whether he had a Cutlass or a 442. I am guessing he was addressing the Cutlass/442 forum section. There were a lot more Cutlasses sold than 442's. I don't recall if the TH400 was even installed in 67 442's. This is a good question for Joe P.

 

Hi OLDSter Ralph,
Thank you for your response and input. You're correct, the owner of the thread concerning the 67 Cutlass/442 gear position light issue didn't come right out and say he definitely has a 442. Could easily be a bad assumption on my part, that when he used the descriptor "67 Cutlass/442", I thought he meant he had a 67 Cutlass with 442 trim package.

As for whether the 67 442's had an option for the TH400 tranny, there are numerous trusted sites referenced by this forum that document it was available on the 67. As I mentioned in my original post, this is backed up by the 2nd Accessory Column on my cowl tag which has the "Z" code denoting my car was optioned with the 3-speed TH400.

I am hoping, like you, that Joe P. will see this and weigh in, he always has a wealth of information. Thanks again for the rsvp,
Ralph

 

The "5V" on the cowl tag proves that this is a real 442 (well, at least the cowl tag came from a real 442...). The tag in the photos does not look like it's been tampered with, so we'll assume it's original. The TH400 was the only AT offered behind the 400 motor in the 442 that year. If you have the Protect-O-Plate, the trans unit number should match the one on the P-O-P. "2Z" is the correct ACC code for a TH400 installation. Note that the shifter gate in the column is different for a Jetaway vs. a TH400, so assuming the shift gate properly accesses all three forward gears in the trans, it is likely that the dash bezel was replaced with a more common one from a 2spd car at some point in the last half century.

 

Hi Joe,
Thank you for the informative and detailed response. As usual, you are a valued and trusted source of knowledge on these cars! Unfortunately, I don't have the P-O-P for the car. Since this thread started, I went out to the car and verified the shifter accesses 3 separate forward gear positions. So like you said, at some point (3 periods of restoration are documented), the gear indicator bezel must have been replaced with the more common 2-speed one. At some point I may reach out to guys on this forum and see if anyone has an extra 3-speed one they'd like to sell. It's not critical to me, because you don't even notice it unless you're an expert and looking for deviations from OEM specs. Thanks again for taking the time to rsvp.
Ralph