I was talking reeeeeeal nice to an old post high school buddy last night (trying to buy a'63 chevy ll rear axle assy). and the subject of B-w o/ds came up. He remembered years ago in a HRM that a fellow was trying to sell kits to attach R-11 to the back ends of Ford C6 automatics. This may have been the first mention of the differences of the two units. The Ford man in the article was putting them behind some pretty beefy Fe series (332?-427)motors.
Beatman, your mention of Packard reminds me that the earlier rodding generation used to say that the Packard could be put behing really stout OHV street rods. The o/d Packard could be had with a column shift or floor shift version. It seemed that they had a sychronized low gear-its been a while since I heard that conversation (50 years), maybe the fact that you can do that to an o/d while freewheeling made the oldtimer think that. He was a legendary welder in the Arlington,texas area. Lots of roundy-round guys would get him to weld up their spider gears- We would then call them Lee-lockers (as opposed to Detroit-Lockers).
In an era where early dragster still used Cadillac-La Salle trannys (second & high only) Mr. Lee (scotty-watty-watty-womp!) said the packard's only fault was a weak case. Mr. Lee said he had welded a seel strap around several Packard cases (never brazed- the hard way arc only) that were used behind big GMCs without failures.
Oh yeah, I got that rear end free! "The Orange Possum Special" may see daylight yet!!! (now I"m working on the "55 posi center section he has in another!)
Last edited by preacher-no choir; 09/15/11 07:12 AM. Reason: misspelled reeeeeeal
