I think the swap is worthwhile as it gives you factory designed 1st gear starts (with out fooling the kickdown linkage) and vacuum modulated shifts. I am currently planing an FMX swap. If it makes you happy and makes driving more enjoyable just go for it. Sounds like you have a shop that knows how to make things work, around here if it is not front wheel drive they just give you a dumb look.

if 1 takes the time to read the throttle pressure adjustment procedure they are only telling us how the adjustment should be made,no trickery. the vacuum modulator makes the linkage less cumbersome. the earley kick down and throttle linkage was prone to wear and needed adjustment  . also a lot of restorers eliminated it,not aware of damage to trans.  with the vacuum modulated it is adjustable and will if adjusted correctly start in 1st the dual range just insures start in 2 or 1 ,most likely to compete with the power glide(gen2)..
 i think the start of this debate is great and makes the site worth while, i am 77 and still learn a bunch  especially engine issues.

talk about squandering inheritance to kids i did a great job of that when putting a 292 and 4speed trans into my 49 mercury truck

hope all of you a merret xmas and prosperous new year. cliff from bc canada

A little update on the conversion. For all purposes it's complete. While I had the car up in the air to make the colum linkage work the way I wanted it to, I found a slight leak on the governor cover and made a new gasket solving the problem.
For linkage I extended the stock column arm the size of the 3/4" hole for the grommet plus clearance for the rubber. I made it so it would slip on and held thru the original grommet hole with bolt/nut/washer combination. It clears the rear of the exhaust header with ease and gave me the extra length needed 6 instead of the 5 original indicated positions.
As luck would have it and the 56 having a very easy way to adjust the dash indicator all worked out well. P for park, R for reverse, and L for low were extremely close and D for drive ended up between the 2 drive positions. I was able to purchase another plastic indicator and am waiting for it to show up. I will put a white dot on the left side of the "D" and a green dot on the right side when I get it installed I'll post a photo. I guess you say I have a green dot cruiseOmatic now. I just want to save the original clear plastic original.
As for performance, it's exactly what I was looking for. Normal driveing 12-15 in 1st, 25-28 in second, and then to third. Since the 62 I used has a vacuum modulator shift points adjust easy with more throttle and the down shift arm is adjust with a slider part the shop made and it does it job.
Everyone makes their own decisions on deals like this, and this was mine and right now I could not be happier.

56 Vic, B'Ville 200 MPH Club Member, So Cal.

DryLakesRacer, I know the feeling 100%. When I put a c-o-m in my 57 Fairlane it really woke that car up. Like, changed the whole personality of the car.  With the 3.56:1  gear it would produce a very nice squack going into 2nd and a chirp into 3rd. You will never regret it.  In my case, it really wasn't very difficult. Using a c-o-m form a 63 390 Mercury was pretty much physically the same as the 57 f-o-m. Splines were the same, length same and if I can remember correctly, the yoke was the same.  For the shift linkage, I drilled several holes along the shift leer on the trans, then it was simply a matter of selecting the right hole to gain the correct throw. That provided all ranges for the existing 57 shift linkage. It actually lined up with with P R N D L. The problem, if it is a problem was the extra range, the green dot, which was in the neighborhood of D on the 57 but I know the feel for it so wasn't a problem for me. Your idea of producing an new glass window including the green dot is awesome.       For the throttle linkage, keeping the stock "grass hopper" affair was easy. I bored out the threads in the clevis so it would slide on the throttle control rod eventually striking the adjustable stop nut and that was it. Had proper kick down point and the modulator was fool proof and adjustable by changing the length of the modulator push rod if desired. Kits were available for this purpose at the time.  This is how it worked in my case and sounds like you have a winner.  Thanks for sharing, JEFF.......................


64F100 57FAIRLANE500

I have a 57 Skyliner and have been reading your saga of the Cruise-O-Matic transmission swap.  I want to put a higher geared rear end in my skyliner so that I can reduce the cruise RPM at 65 to the low 2000 RPM.  I am worried that the Ford-O-Matic will have problems from a dead stop getting up to speed with just 2 gears.  I am hoping that I too can convert to the Cruise-O-Matic to solve this problem.  Please keep us informed on the outcome.

coke.. The original begining of what I did was to put in a rear end with a higher ratio gear and that is in the future. I too had reservations on changing gears and finding starting out in 2nd would not make me as happy as the way it was. So the trans is done and the car performs the same as it did starting in 2nd and when in "green dot" more of a pleasure. In 1955/56 there were very few Interstates and the speed limit in Ca. was only 55 so a lot of this didn't matter.

My rear gear is 3.30 on the tag and I'm looking at 3.0 or 2.89 if I go to an 8" and 3.0 if I go with a 9". The next higher ez in a 9" is 2.75 which may be a little much for me. A 2.89 is available but it's not a Ford gear and is available to NASCAR and I had a set once that went to a Bonneville racer.
My only wish was that if I could have found a complete trans with flexplate, TC, and trans and not modify some of my parts but the trans shop knew their business and did a good job only leaving me to figure out the indicator which I knew was coming.

Good luck with your project..

56 Vic, B'Ville 200 MPH Club Member, So Cal.

]your trans is a 3speed,just adjust the throttle linkage and especially throttle pressure rod. owned a 57merc and if 1 puts the throttle down at a light it started in1st.wher do you think low comes from. light throttle the will start in2. if you go to a library and find a 56-57 motors repair manual it will walk you threw the adjustment procedure

Yes, I realize that the Ford-o-matic is a 3 speed transmission.  i was not aware that it could be adjusted to start in low.  This may be a viable fix.  In the mid 1960's I converted my 61 Ford with a COM to a 4 speed.  I sold the transmission to a guy with a 56 Ford.  He said that he would manually shift the trans from low to drive to use all three gears.  The FOM in his car was damaged and he was told by an automatic transmission shop at the time that the transmissions were not designed to use low all the time and that his practice of manually shifting damaged the transmission.  I have only limited understanding of the operation of the automatic transmission, so perhaps the transmission shop or the guy that bought my COM was misinformed.

miker, this for you, and of course everyone else. I'm done with the swap, with a little extra work from me and the front harmonic balancer/ steady rest snafu. I'm showing some photo on the dash indicator. Had to add a white ring so you could see it.
 

 

 

 

56 Vic, B'Ville 200 MPH Club Member, So Cal.

Didn't show park and reverse, Reverse is perfect and Park is just slightly under. Mine has a park start added by the previous owner and it still needs a slight adjustment but I start it in neutral just like I did on my Moms in the early 60's.

56 Vic, B'Ville 200 MPH Club Member, So Cal.