Rollstart Cruiseomatic trans.

[Ren]

You can rollstart with a Cruieomatic trans. Tried it myself. At fairly low speed.
Not that this is earth-shattering news.
Lotsa' folks on this forum probably knew that already.
But for everyone else, it is very nice to know little things like that.

[M-100]

That is interesting. What kind of trans is a cruisomatic?Fmx. C4. Or something else.

[Ren]

The Cruiseomatic is in a family of transmissions that is subject to a few different names and shift patterns. FMX is one of the names. This family of transmissions is easily identified with a magnet as they are iron cased. They have absolutely nothing to do with C4 or C6.

Another problem is that no matter what name they go by, they are supposedly all the 'same thing'. Yet, they are also all somehow 'different'.
I am under the impression that they aren't 'bad' transmissions. But they aren't sought after either.

[crazyhorse]

Mr Ben , it has been many years since I had a cruise o matic.
I do remember they are heavy for only 1 person to remover & install .
The best I remember the roll of speed was 15- 20 mph.
Does that sound about right?

[Ren]

I didn't look at the speed. But it was on the upper end of the realm that one could expect from the physical effort of an average, drunken lummox on level ground.

[jzjames]

So you can NOT roll start a C4 automatic? I was thinking of this yesterday.

[Ren]

On the subject of rollstarting with an automatic transmission, a fairly knowledgeable carbuddy briefly explained it as such:

Most auto transmissions have a front mounted pump. Transmissions with a rear mounted pump can be rollstarted as the pump can turn with the driveshaft.
The only other transmission he could think of that does this are early versions of the Chevy Powerglide.

This is all I know of the subject.

[sargentrs]

Good to know! I have the Cruise-o-matic in my Fairlane. Says so right on the shift selector. Also known as the "green dot" transmission because the shift selector has P R N DRIVE L on the selector. The word DRIVE is over 2 dots, one smaller and white, the other larger and green. On the green dot, it operates like a 3 speed, on the white dot it operates like a 2 speed. L is really low and you don't get very far without having to shift up. Available mostly in Fairlanes and Mustangs although I think they were in Falcons and Comets, too, pre-1965. The C4 replaced most applications from '64 up although both seem to have been available in '64.

[Ren]

Regarding rollstart speed, I did some experimenting. The Cruiseomatic needs upwards of 20mph to start. This is beyond the range of human power on level ground. No matter how big, drunk, and enthusiastic the pusher may be.

Regarding the 'green dot', my '67 F250 was originally equipped with the Cruiseomatic, and still has it. However, my shift column indicator shows no evidence of green or white dots, although my transmission actually functions like the green dot shift pattern. The pattern on the indicator literally shows this:
P R N D 2 1

When I bought the truck and was getting acquainted with it, I was wondering why it didn't have first gear when I put it in 'D'. It was by accident when I discovered that it only used all three gears when I put it in '2'.

I think I read somewhere that the Cruiseomatic can be found with two different shift patterns. The green dot, and the normal shift pattern. I think I also read that 1966 was the last year Ford used the green dot shift pattern. However, my '67 has it nonetheless.