First single-rail 4-speed

[Dr Terry]

Hi Guys.

Just wanted to know when was the first single-rail BW 4-speed was fitted to a Falcon. I believe it was sometime during XA, but what month & year ?

Dr Terry

[Dr Terry]

Anyone ?

[FERG_51]

The first Falcon i ever knew a single rail was XB but i guess very late XA may have been a possibility.

[foxtrot3]

Hi. No mention of it in the workshop manual till the XB but it still could have been released before that. Cheers MD

[onemanempire]

Originally Posted by FERG_51

The first Falcon i ever knew a single rail was XB but i guess very late XA may have been a possibility.

Yes I agree. If you also want to include 6 Cylinder Cortina's in the mix, the TC's all had Top loaders, and the TD's all had single rail's.

But, as FERG has mentioned, there may have been the odd one right at the end of production that had a single rail if they ran out of top loaders, which I doubt, as they would have had some as spares, for the spares department / warranty etc.

I had a book called how to modify your Holden, and it was like a bible... on Holdens. Just wondering if Ford had an equivalent bible.
Rare spares would know for sure, as they are the knowledge bank on such things... or used to be.

One Man.

[Dr Terry]

Originally Posted by onemanempire

Yes I agree. If you also want to include 6 Cylinder Cortina's in the mix, the TC's all had Top loaders, and the TD's all had single rail's.

But, as FERG has mentioned, there may have been the odd one right at the end of production that had a single rail if they ran out of top loaders, which I doubt, as they would have had some as spares, for the spares department / warranty etc.

I had a book called how to modify your Holden, and it was like a bible... on Holdens. Just wondering if Ford had an equivalent bible.
Rare spares would know for sure, as they are the knowledge bank on such things... or used to be.

One Man.

I'm actually researching this for a similar book to the one you mentioned, but it seems very difficult to get info from this time period.

Here's what I know.

It appears the first Aussie car to get the BW single rail 4-speed was the E49 Charger which was released in August 1972.

The P76 also got this gearbox & that was released in June 1973.

Now the XB wasn't released until November 1973 & the TD Cortina in Nov 1974, so it would be reasonable to suggest that late XA & TC would have got the BW box as well.

A small number of XB GTs got US built 4V Cleveland V8s, so they could be homologated for racing, so those cars would have got Top-Loader 4-speeds as well, so it could be assumed that virtually all other XB 4-speeds were BW single rails.

The BW gearbox replaced the Top-Loader to reduce costs & to increase local build content %, so Ford Aust would've done it soon as possible & would've planned with Borg Warner on a fairly precise timeframe for its introduction.

There must be other nerds like me out there who would know these things.

Dr Terry

[Citroënbender]

Speaking of local content, were the HK-HG steering boxes wholly Oz made, or did they have US components?

[Dr Terry]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Speaking of local content, were the HK-HG steering boxes wholly Oz made, or did they have US components?

I believe that they are manufactured here with the only imported parts being the thrust bearings.

Dr Terry

[Citroënbender]

Thanks - had noticed the castings looked different to US products but wasn’t sure on the guts.

[onemanempire]

I just did a 10 second search out of curiosity and found this..



Looks like that may answer your question... and suspicions as well.

Web page can be found here:

https://www.rarespares.net.au/raresp...74-on-xb-xc-tc

One Man.

[Dr Terry]

Later than I would have thought, but still fits the timeframe.

Working with that date, it appears that the first 5 months of XB & the last 7 months production of TC 6-cyl 4-speeds were still fitted with Top-Loaders.

Dr Terry