Thread: Cruise-O-Matic

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please excuse my ignorance regarding ford transmissions. i have a 1965 galaxie with a 352. it has a cruise-o-matic transmission. i have been told that this is a c4 tranny and i have also been told that it is a c6. and i have read that it is not either and that is was a transmission of its own. im not sure what to beleive so i figured i would ask here. also how will a cruise-o-matic handle power? will it take some abuse or will i have problems with it breaking all of the time, i dont plan on building an extremely crazy motor but i do want to take the car to the drag strip to have some fun on friday nights, will this make a good tranny for me or should i get a c4 or c6?

They were the predecessor of the C-4 and C-6, they won't take much abuse. Might be better off looking for a C-6, as heavy as the Galaxies are the C-4 would be a bit on the light side unless you spend a bunch of money beefing it up. The C-6 with just a shift kit IMO would work fine for you.

Cruisomatics actully are C4's, an early version of the C4 but, they are C4's none the less. I have a C4 in my '67 Falcon, and it has cruisomatic printed on the shift indicator. it took me a while to figure out what they trully were, Dearborn Classics dosen't list them on there vehicle options list on the order forms, just 3spd manual, 4spd manual, C4 or FMX.

am i going to have problems from this trasmission if i do an ocassional burnout or something to that effect?

Originally posted by tyler
am i going to have problems from this trasmission if i do an ocassional burnout or something to that effect?

it wouldn't hurt to upgrade to a C6, if the C4 you have works ok and everything, it should be fine for a while, if you burn out, I'd be leary of doing it with an open rear end ( non posi, 1 wheel spins ) because it is hard on the spiders and can spin out the rear if enough tire burning has been done. just remember to add type F fluid to it, Dexron/Mecron 3 will kill it if mixed, or you could rebuild and use Dexron/ Mecron 3

The cruise-o-matics are basicly the same trans from 51 to 78,the 50s versions were the ford-o-matics then the cruise-o-matics and in the late 60s to the end I think in 78 were called the FMX. They are not bad trans just heavy and with a valve body change can be made to do the 1-2-D up and down shifts as the 65s had the green dots on the indicator and can be manually upshifted but not like the later versions. A C-6 would be better but if you are just only going to drive it normally your trans should work just fine. Jeff