Stupid Question about Old Cars

[Mod10]

I figured there are a lot of experts on cars out of the 50s and 60s on this forum.

Here's my question, the old automatic transmissions out of the 50s and 60s like the PowerGlide were considered 2 speed. Is this like 2nd gear on modern transmissions? If so, how were these cars drivable?

 

[G-Mac]

My first car was a 1967 Chevy BelAir with a two-speed automatic. Two speed only means that it had to shift once to get into high gear...it wasn't equal to second gear in a modern automatic transmission.

 

[Muley Gil]

My '52 Buick Super had an OHV straight eight and a DynaFlow transmission. This trannie didn't shift AT ALL. Put it in Drive, step down on the gas pedal and it would SLOWLY get up to speed. Very smooth, but very slow.

 

[Evil One]

The average powerglide has a 1.76:1 1st gear and a 1:1 2nd gear.
This puts the powerglide first gear ratio in between the average 3 speed autos 1st and 2nd gears ratios... with high gear in the two transmissions being 1:1 ratios.


Jim

 

[feralmerril]

My 1st auto was a 56 chev coup with powerglide. She had no problem getting up to 105 or so.
I also had I think a 51 dodge business coup with some kind of slush o matic. I could slowly take off like a auto without shifting, or shift it by hand. If I recall right, seems I didnt have to use the clutch either.
That car was doggy, but built like a tank!

 

[Muley Gil]

feralmerril,

A friend of mine bought a '48 Dodge and it had the same drivetrain. I don't recall the transmission name, but it was a three-on-the-tree combined with a torque converter.

Combine that tranny with a flathead Dodge straight six and you have a sloooow accelerating vehicle, especially if you start off in third.

The good thing was that you couldn't kill the engine by dumping the clutch.

 

[Engineer1911]

1968 Chevy Impala hardtop with 2-speed powerglide; 1st gear was good to 57 MPH and 2nd (high) was good to about 110 mph. Second gear was good from about 30 MPH to top speed. Gas mileage ran from 16 mpg (Wisconsin winter) to about 21 mpg (Wisconsin summer @ 60 MPH on interstate).

Acceleration was good but nothing to burn tires with, only 307 cubic inch motor.

 

[parts]

IIRC, Dodge (Chrysler) called their transmisson a Fluid Drive.

David

 

[m657]

Consider the shift point happened only once. Large engines with wide power bands and lots of torque were required to get those dogs to pump the fluid around enough to turn the rear wheels.

Considerable compromise between engine and rear wheel RPM was made using torque converters to allow extra slippage so this kind of inefficiency could be used at all, rather like 'riding the clutch' on a manual.

Poor gas economy as well

There were some early autos that required activation of a foot clutch but no movement of the column shifter to change gears.

Buick had a one speed auto slipomatic that worked pretty good with their torqy straight 8. Slow but smooth.

Another company had a column shifter you could move but didn't need to use the foot clutch. I forget which company made those. They weren't a big hit either.

My first automatic was a 53 Caddy 4 speed hydramatic.

 

[SWID]

We used to call Powerglider Powerslide. Pontiac, Olds, and Caddy had hydramatic, which was three speed and not bad, especially when bolted to a Rocket engine. (That's an Oldsmobile for those that are too young, big engine in a Pontiac body, the Olds 88. The 98, which was a Buick (Special and Century) body also could get down the road.)

It was said that Buick (dynaflow) had the only true automatic.

My friend's parents had what I think was a 53 Chrysler, and it was automatic with a clutch. As Feral said I don't think you had to use it, I don't know how it worked.

I think Ford called theirs Fordamatic. Imagine that.

The author is not responsible for any mistatements of fact.

 

[scooter123]

Takes me back a ways. When I was a youngster my stepbrother had a 67 Olds Cutlass with a 330 4bbl and a powerslide tranny. It was slow off the line but once it got up to about 30 it ran like a scalded rabbit to about 60, when it would shift into Drive and "fall off" the cam. The powerglide also had a "passing gear" feature, which was either done by "tweaking" the slippage in the torque convertor or by allowing the bands for the high gear planetary to slip. However, as lacking as the powerslide was in efficiency, it certainly made up for it in being nearly indestructable, the very first automatic transmissions used in Top Fuel drag racers were either powerglides or basically copies of that particular transmission.

Another intersting tidbit is that the powerglide was largely copied from the planetary transmission used in Henry Ford's Model T.

Funny thing is that the automakers have been fooling around with transmissions for a very long time. I remember my dad telling me about a Pre-Selector transmission that predated the automatics. I think it was Cord, but the way it worked is that you would move a lever on the dash to the next gear setting and the gear change would take place when you pushed in the clutch. Since that scheme was probably based on a spring tension system, I'll bet that it resulted in a huge number of warranty repairs and a real headache for the owners when it went out of wack after the warranty expired.

 

[-db-]

However, as lacking as the powerslide was in efficiency, it certainly made up for it in being nearly indestructable, the very first automatic transmissions used in Top Fuel drag racers were either powerglides or basically copies of that particular transmission.

Not only that but they're still used in all kinds of drag racing today: http://www.tciauto.com/Products/Powerglide/

 

[oldman45]

It appears those here are mostly youngsters. My first car was a '56 Chevy Bel Air converible, the next was a new '59 Impala convertible that spent more time in the dealer's shop than in my driveway. It did not have a powerglide but rather a Turboglide tranny. No gears to shift, just a single speed unit that was often giving trouble. It also had a 348 Tri Power motor. Since then, in the last 15 yrs, I have bought a few old convertibles to restore but the prices have risen so high that doing such now is getting more difficult.

I currently have a 25 yr old Chrysler Premium convertible with only 50,000 miles. But since it was sort of an experimental car for Chrysler and a pre LeBaron version, the fancy features found on cars today often go bad and finding replacement parts is difficult. Beautiful car though with ALL the options.

 

[Brett248Vista]

PowerGlide, PowerSlide, Powerscud, what ever you call it, it's one of the most widely used transmissions in Drag Racing along with the good old Chrysler Torque Flight 727

Fluid drive used a hydraulic clutch pedal, two pumps in the transmission if I'm not mistaken and this setup can be adapted to almost any automatic, many circle track cars run full manual automatics with a front and rear pump with a "clutch pedal" and you can even drift start them.

 

[deadin]

My 1st car was a '49 Plymouth with 3 on the column. Gutless wonder 6, but my uncle had installed a exhaust cut-out. It dumped the manifold into about a 2 ft. straight pipe. Scared the c*** out of the next car when I threw the lever and punched it.

Any body remember the Chevy "vacuum shift"? It absolutely would not allow a "speed" shift. My buddy disabled it in his '47 Chev. He would grind a gear every now and then, but it was cooler than the big pause waiting to shift.
As I remember the hottest car in town was a '57 Olds with Tri-Power installed. Man the thing was fast in the quarter!

 

[beemerphile]

Powerslides and Dynaslows. Remember them well. I hung many a clutch pedal under the dash of a 57 Chevy to change the Powerslide to a Muncie.

 

[Texas1941]

My first car was a '63 Impala SS HT 327 4 bbl carb with a Powerglide transmission. Gas mileage under 70 mph or so was a joke, but in the mid sixties, who cared? I usually paid 19.9 cents for premium, and every other month or so there were "Gas Wars", that would drive the price down to 14.9 cents.

Of course, my income was about $30 a week, which was pretty good for a high school kid who had no real expenses but gas and hamburgers. Now, I don't really go anywhere anymore, and my gas bill still runs $140 a month.

 

[feralmerril]

I also had a 46 chev with the vacume shift. I once had a car full of kids along, went down a very long lane that ended up at a farmers house. The shift locked up, the farm lady standing on the porch watching while my buddys laughing while I was trying to get the gears sorted out for 5 minuets to get out of there!

 

[Muley Gil]

Here's an interesting website on Chrysler tranmissions:

The M6 automatic transmission

 

[m657]

SWID:

I grew up in that part of Idaho and worked in Owyhee County. Does Murphy still have it's single designated parking meter?