I was taught a valuable lifelong lesson when I was about 18 or 19 years old. The lesson applies to more than cars. My dad is the best, he is still hanging around at 91 years old. I have to credit both of my parents for the lesson though, I know now that they worked together. It was the last rebuilt transmission that car needed.
I owned a 1966 Shelby Mustang GT350. The real deal. Carrol Shelby was and still is my car hero. Shelby mustangs and the Cobra roadster were and are the coolest cars in the world. Carrol Shelby is still the most innovative driver and car builder ever. It has an automatic transmission, Shelby was part of Hertz rental car company back then and build specialty rental Mustangs for Hertz. The rentals came with the famed C-4 Cruiseomatic Ford automatic transmission, pre Fordomatic, all three now defunct. The racing Shelby’s were White with two big wide blue racing stripes going from front to rear. Awesome man.
My problem surrounded abuse. I was over diligent about maintenance, even though synthetic automatic transmission fluid had not been invented back then, the ATF was better than we can get nowadays. Whale oil was the main ingredient in ATF that long ago and the government put a stop to killing whales for ATF in the late ’70’s, I think.
Whale oil made good tranny fluid. It took many years to bring it back up to specs. Everyone made an additive that improved the quality of ATF before they (manufacturers) figured out how to improve it. The main additive as I remember was JoJoba bean oil.
The reality is conventional A.T. fluid never was the same, that’s when and where synthetic ATF comes in. Not that many people used it until the early ’90’s, except for me. I am a maintenance nut, so I located a company in California called Redline that was one of the first to make synthetic lubricants. They still make a great product. I don’t use it anymore because it cost way more than Mobil 1 sybthetic and Mobil 1 is good stuff.
That being said, take no chances on your replacement transmission, chances are it is rebuilt with modern parts that require synthetic transmission fluid. If you enjoy what we are posting on our GotTransmissions.com Blog, sign up for a free subscription.
