th200 to 200r4?

hey everybody. new to the forum. just picked up a 84 buick lesabre. cleancar and runs good but its got that pos th200c. dont trust it to get me through the winter. wondering if anybody has swapped these out for th350 or 200r4. i heard the 350 swap is cake but i already got a 200r4 with low miles i could use. any info is greatly appreciated, thanks

Early 80s B bodies came with 200-4r's so they will have everything you need for a direct bolt-in swap. IIRC, you'll need the X-member and the drive shaft.

Your shifter linkage should mount right up to it, but because it's a 4spd the gear indicator won't be accurate. You'll have to count the number of "clicks" as you move the shifter into gear. An option is to swap it with one from a 4spd (automatic) car.

ok cool, thanks alot. thats about what i was thinking. my plan is to swap the 200r4 out of my fleetwood into the buick. the 200r4 only has like 5000k on it. and we all know about the th200c. so ill have the xmember and driveshaft from the caddy but i dont think the fleetwood fell in the bbody category tho?? think it was separate with the 80s electra and olds 98. but would the frames still be the same??? any info greatly appreciated, thanks

I think the Fleetwood is a "C" body? I'm not sure about the frame being the same or not. Maybe someone else will chime in with that info.
I guess for the time being, you may want to take a good look at the X member to see if it looks like it'll bolt up in the proper place on the Buick. Maybe take a measurement of the drive shaft length while you're under the car too?

Believe it or not, the th200 in my last Impala withstood roughly 300 horsepower without breaking. Over a dozen full throttle (with a 150hp NOS shot) launches and nothing broke. I was actually surprised, lol!

lol get out, no kidding? ive never heard a good thing about them, though i never had one myself. maybe ill just ride it out till it die, especially since its a stock 307. what year was yours?

1979. One of the members here owns the car now and it's still running strong.

I've heard some bad stuff about them (th200) but I've been pretty lucky I guess.
Preventive maintenance goes a long way too. I don't know for sure if it has anything to do with my luck, but the 1st thing I do when I buy an older vehicle is to change the trans fluid. I go to a dealer and have it hooked up to a machine that changes out all of the fluid including what's in the converter without dropping the pan. Afterwards when I get home I drop the pan and change the filter, and of course refill it.
I don't remember changing the filter on the Impala though..... Hmm.

nice, ill see how the fluids looking, thanks alot. id much rather keep it than swap it. hopefully ill get some life from it since it only got 83k.

I don't think the th200 are all that weak I drove few and they never slipped or broke but that was bone stock. People

probably say that when they add a cam , intake and headers but then $h#@ starts breaking anyway. The only trannys

that I ever killed were Chrysler 904s two of them in fact those are WEAK both cars were bone stock 318s and one was

a 2bbl!

nice, good to hear lol. i never had one only heard about them, and yea im runnin bone stock, so hopefully ill be good, thanks for info

Myloth wrote:<snip>The only trannys

that I ever killed were Chrysler 904s two of them in fact those are WEAK both cars were bone stock 318s and one was

a 2bbl!

LMAO!! Same here! 318 2bbl in a 74 Charger.

My 82 Trans Am came with the TH200C and I never did like that transmission. It was behind a low powered 305 at the time, but it never shifted right no matter how many times I adjusted the detent cable which is key to those transmissions. I could get it shifting good for a week, then it would somehow lose its settings. The torque converter lock up worked when it felt like it and finally in 2011 when reverse went out, I said goodbye to it and replaced with TH350 and never looked back.

nice info thanks, and what i was thinking. when you swapped in the th350 did you stick with lockup or no? and how was the swap? i wanted to keep the trans that was in the buick, but it slams reverse way too hard even when idle is kicked down, and i dont know how long the th200c can take it

chevybaby wrote:nice info thanks, and what i was thinking. when you swapped in the th350 did you stick with lockup or no? and how was the swap? i wanted to keep the trans that was in the buick, but it slams reverse way too hard even when idle is kicked down, and i dont know how long the th200c can take it

The TH350 I have doesn't have a lockup converter, it's a 70s short tail shaft vacuum modulated transmission, very basic, but just about bullet proof. The swap was easy in the Trans Am. I just bought the B&M conversion kit and was able to keep my existing drive shaft, transmission cross-member and torque arm. It even uses the factory type transmission mount. The TH200C won't take the reverse slamming long. That's what mine started to do before reverse went completely out, oh and it took 3rd gear with it.

The TH350 I have doesn't have a lockup converter, it's a 70s short tail shaft vacuum modulated transmission, very basic, but just about bullet proof.  The swap was easy in the Trans Am.  I just bought the B&M conversion kit and was able to keep my existing drive shaft, transmission cross-member and torque arm.  It even uses the factory type transmission mount.  The TH200C won't take the reverse slamming long.  That's what mine started to do before reverse went completely out, oh and it took 3rd gear with it.[/quote]

hey got another question. i got a th350 for the car. when you did the swap, did removing the electric lockup throw off the computor at all? someone was telling me it would throw off the computor readings for the timing and the ccc qjet, but i didnt think so? and also, i should be able to get any 70's bop th350 converter right?, or were they different? thanks alot, all info much appreciated

I didn't notice anything different with the computer after removing the connector and once I put a different top-end setup and distributor in the car, the computer became useless and was finally completely removed, wiring and all when I did the engine swap a few years later. Not sure about the converter differences, maybe someone else who knows can chime in on that.

nice thanks man. eventually thats my plan too, switch to one wire hei and non computor qjet.
but gettin this tranny situated first.