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Nearly any manual 3 or 4 speed transmission made from 1964 to 1984 will fit EXCEPT the Dagenham, which is a woosie little transmission that has the wrong bolt pattern and can't even hold up to the abuse of a 200 ci, 6-cylinder engine. Depending on the original use of the transmission you may have to change tailpieces, but the transmissions are all rather compatible. The most common and strongest are the "toploaders", so named because the gears are loaded through a cover in the top of the transmission. The Ford Toploader Transmission was introduced in 1964 to replace the Borg Warner T-10.  This is a very durable transmission built by Ford to hold up to the abuse of high performance, big block engines. All the inners (gears) of the "top-loader" are inserted through the top of the  transmission instead of the side. The toploaders are fully synchronized except for reverse.

Toploaders are available in 3-speed and 4-speed versions. The 3-speed variety is plenty strong enough, but nobody seems to want only 3 forward speeds. David Kee has a great page on Toploaders at http://www.4speedtoploaders.com/ 

Dave points out that all forward-speed changes are accomplished with synchronizer sleeves instead of sliding gears.  The synchronizers enable quicker shifts, greatly reduce gear clash, and permit down-shifting into any forward-speed gear while the car is moving (old news for most of us).  All forward-speed gears in the transmission are the helical-type; however, the reverse sliding gear and the exterior of the first and second-speed synchronizer sleeve are spur-type gears.

Toploaders were available from 1964 to 1973 in many Fords and are available in close-ration and wide-ration varieties. They can fit in everything from a 200ci to a 390ci engine. My 200 c.i. 6 cylinder engine in my 1967 Mustang had a 3-speed toploader in it.  A good source of toploaders today is in the Econoline vans. An easy way to identify the number of forward gears is by the number of shift  rods. A 3-speed has only 2 (reverse/1st on one and 2nd/3rd on the other) whereas a 4-speed has 3 rods (reverse on one, 1st/second on one and 3rd/4th on one). You can see the side of the transmission in the picture above has 3 shafts coming out the side of the transmission. This is a 4-speed. The 3-speed has only the 2 shafts that are closest to each other.

The tailpiece came in any of 3 different lengths, depending on the application.  The 1964-65 Fairlane used a 25-1/2" long tailpiece, the Mustangs, Falcons, Mavericks, Cougars, 1966-67 Fairlanes and Comets use a 24 " tailpieces, and all full size cars and the 428, 429 Cyclone and Torino use the 27" tailpiece.  In 1964 and early 1965 a few transmissions used a 25 spline output shaft which proved  to be defective.  These were quickly dropped from production.  Normally all motors 200 c.i. to 390 c.i. use the 28 spline output shaft. The Toploader was produced in 133 different models.

The "toploader" transmissions were available in Granadas from 1977 to 1979. For some reason pundits such as David Kee and other transmission experts don't consider these to be true toploaders, but I can't figure out why not. These are 3-speeds with overdrive. The tailpiece is  24" long, so it bolts right in where the 3-speed had been. I have read elsewhere on the web that this transmission can be converted into a "true" 4-speed by changing some of the gears. However, as it stands, I have a very low first gear (3.29:1) and still get a 0.80:1 overdrive. These are the same as the newer T-5 transmissions, except one gear set is missing. A comparison of the T-5 gear ratios and the 3-speed w/ overdrive are shown in the table below.

I got mine out of a 1978 Granada with a 302 c.i. engine. The numbers on it are RUG BP GH21, D7DR AA 1523. Gear ratios in it are 1=3.29;  2=1.84;  3=1.0; 4=0.80; rev=3.29.