Dear Trevor,
Thank you for your kind and informative answer. It sounds a good idea, although I would not really like to part with the original ZB Mk II Engine that is already in the car. (This engine has been upgraded to 1,700 cc and reportedly produces 102 bhp.) Also, I forgot to mention that the car has already been converted from the original 1:4.55 to 1 1:3.9 diff.

Your answer leads me to some more questions, and I would naturally be grateful for even more help. My questions at the moment are:

1. Do the gearboxes in the cars you mention all give the same output, i.e. do the auto gearboxes differ in the choice of gear ratios, or do they produce the same speed per rpm of the engine?


2. I am informed by friends that other cars then the Farinas you mentioned, too, had the BW35 auto gearbox. One example, I am told, is the Jaguar XK120. If this is correct, were there cars that had BW35 gearboxes with higher gear ratios, giving higher speed per rpm of the engine? If so, could a box from such a car be used?

3. Is it possible to change to an even "faster" diff than my 3.9 in order to bring up the speed per rpm? The car certainly feels torquey all along the register. (I owned an M.G. B GT 1968 automatic for nearly ten years. This car had a BW35, which I believe is the same gearbox as in the Farinas, possibly with the same gear ratios. At high speed, due to the low gear ratios of the gearbox, the sound levels in the cockpit were very high due to the high rpm count.)

Kind regards

Dag

Hello Dag

Any of the Farina cars (Austin, Morris, MG, Riley, Wolseley) with auto gearbox would fit, but you would need to change the engine and gearbox for simplicity, the auto box has a torque converter and a kick down, the only other point to check is the rear axle ratio may need to changed.

Trevor

Hi,

In order to cope with the city traffic, we are thinking of inserting an auto gearbox in our 1958 ZB Varitone. Our workshop tells us that if we eant to do this, we might contemplate changing also the Engine for reasons of simpicity. Has something like this been done by someone? I a, a
ware of the possibility to fit a BW35 (as with the Magntete Mk III), and I have also found a mention of an ZB (now sold) reportedly having been fitted with an Toyota 22R engine and an automatic transmission.

Does anyone know anything about such a, or similar, conversions to an auto box?

Dag Åsvärn
Stockholm