Hauling horses around

[Pat]

Bird, With the after market kit on the tranny (or with my new tranny) you can lock up the torque converter in any gear with no problems (except you need to be out of the after market aux OverUnder Drive) so the exhaust brake can function just fine to really hold you back (not quite as good as a REAL Jake brake but pretty good.) It automatically unlocks the converter when your speed drops to the set point so you don't shudder and yank the rods out.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[egon]

Pat:

The double cluthing is for for downshifting so the gears wil mesh.

Going up the range dose not require double cluthchin.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Yes Egon, I know, I have done plenty of double clutching and I know exactly what it does and why. Some of my earlier pickups had synchro-smash in 2nd gear and above but compound low (AKA granny) NON SYNCHRO for first gear. If you wanted to shift into low while moving you needed to adroitly double clutch to avoid "grinding a pound."

As regards driving in all forward speeds from a dead stop to win the bet, I down shifted to lower gears back a ways from an intersection so the way would clear before I arrived and I avoided having to stop.

For the uninitiated among us, double clutching is shifting to neutral, letting the clutch up to spin up the tranny gears, then depressing the clutch again and completing the shift to the next gear. It is a skill mastered by successfull drivers in "THE OLD DAYS" and is becomintg a lost art due to automagic transmissions.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Bird]

Pat, do you remember when the first cars had a synchromesh first gear? My 1964 Dodge Dart did not have it yet, although our 1963 Ford police sedans did. Ford Motor Company used the Dallas Police Department for tests in the '60s. I heard (no proof) that Ford developed the synchromesh first because the Dallas Police tore up so many of the others. We had some interesting tests being done by Ford after I joined the department. While the '63 and '64 Ford sedans were all black and supposedly equipped the same, they had steering wheels of different colors; black, blue, red, and white. When officers got out of the car, it was quite common for the cocking thumb on their revolver to hit the steering wheel, so they got scarred up pretty quickly. The different colors supposedly were different rubber/plastic compounds for Ford to see which held up best. Some cars had different colored distributor caps, or a top radiator tank painted a different color, etc. We got some Chevrolet police cars in 1966 and I think that was the first year for their manual transmissions to have a synchromesh first gear.

And like you, I've done some shifting without using the clutch. The first half of the school year that I drove a school bus, my bus was a 1952 International (oldest bus in the fleet), and it was pretty easy to run through the gears without clutching. The second half of the year, I had the 1959 International (newest bus in the fleet). And it wasn't difficult to do on my '37 Plymouth either.

[Pat]

Bird, Great stuff! No disrespect but... If the police can't tear it up in their daily use it is pretty robust stuff. Smart move on the part of the maker to use cops as guinea pigs (as close to a pun as I dare get)

So you are coasting down to a low speed in second gear, way below where the engine develps good HP and torque, anticipating a stop... B U T... you need to punch it and take off code 3 after some miscreant. You can grind a pound off the gear teeth trying to JAM it in first gear (non synchro low) or if skilled like Bird, throw a quick adroit double clutch and catch low and peel out.

The bet I won for driving the distance without ever touching the clutch, included starting the engine from a dead stop and stoping at the other end. A lightly loaded (empty) pickup Ford F-100 with 6 cyl and 3 speed on the column will start right up in low gear without using the clutch. Stoping was braking to the edge of lugging the engine in low and killing the ignition and stabing the brakes to end its agony.


[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
A lightly loaded (empty) pickup Ford F-100 with 6 cyl and 3 speed on the column will start right up in low gear without using the clutch.

[/ QUOTE ]

As would lots of the cars with the 3 speed on the column. And, unfortunately, you're right; if the police can't tear it up, nobody can. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]