[Shotimes] Re: Park vs. Forward (was Autolock and MTX)

[Donald Mallinson]

Forgot one very interesting fact on the Chevy Turboglide 
with the PNDGrR format:

Gr stood for Grade Retarder as mentioned, but when the cars 
first came out, the joke was that people were using Gr as a 
"low" gear and using it for the drags, thus, the joke that 
people thought it stood for "Go Racing!"

Due to the fact that two of three torque converters were 
reversed when in Gr, it would do severe damage if ANY power 
were applied when in this gear, it was ONLY for slowing down 
on VERY steep hills.

I had one of these and even in the steepest part of the 
hills in the Black Hills of South Dakota, I had to be going 
no faster than about 30 mph when applying the Gr.  Then the 
car would come almost to a halt very quickly.  I then had to 
go into drive to about 40 mph and the use thebrakes (if any 
were left) to get back to 30 and go into Gr again.  Not a 
very good set-up.

for flat land use though, the Turboglide was a delight, if 
not the most efficient transmission.  Due to so many people 
destroying the tranny by using Gr as a low gear, the tranny 
got a reputation for being fragile, but the opposite was 
really true.  As long as you didn't accelerate in Gr, the 
tranny was almost indestructible.  One veteran mechanic 
remembers GM techs bringing the cars to dealerships to train 
mechanics in how to not only repair the tranny, but train 
the staff on how to USE the tranny.

In one demo, they would take off and race away from a stop 
to about 30 mph or so and throw the tranny into reverse and 
boil the tires till the car was going backwards at a high 
rate, then throw it into forward and do it all over again. 
After a few minutes of this torture, they would put the car 
on a rack and pull apart the tranny and see that zero damage 
had resulted.    TRUE!

But the tranny was discontinued after being offered for just 
three years, 1957, 58 and part of 59.  A few still exist, 
many were replaced with the almost equally tough, and much 
simpler and harder to destroy by accident..Powerglide.

Don Mallinson
More history than many of you may want but still interesting.

Donald Mallinson wrote:

> Also, just as a point of history, the PRNDL format has not always been 
> the same.
> 
> in the early days of automatics, GM used this format:  PNDLR
> 
> Chevy for their Turboglide used: PNDGrR   Now that was confusing, Gr 
> stood for Grade Retarder.  Since there were no "gears" as such in the 
> Turboglide (the tranny used three torque converters in a row and as they 
> locked up the car went faster, was like driving a train!) they reversed 
> the vanes on two of the torque converters as a type of low gear for 
> going down REALLY steep hills.
> 
> Mopar had NO park position on their buttons from the 50's and 60's, you 
> had to flip a little lever to lock the tranny!
> 
> Don Mallinson
> 
> fwhittle@mindspring.com wrote:
> 
>> (F)orward might be confused with (F)irst?  (Reaching, I know!)
>>
>> Besides, "Prndl" is easier to say than "Prnfl" (the "official" name of 
>> the gear indicator is "prindl")
>>
>> Frank Whittle
>> '95 ATX
>>
>> Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 17:29:42 -0800 (PST)
>> From: Ron Childs <rbchilds@pacbell.net>
>> Subject: Re: [Shotimes] Autolock and MTX
>> To: "James F. Ryan III" <av8r567@optonline.net>, shotimes@autox.team.net
>>
>> Drive is the opposite of Park?
>>
>> -Ron
>>
>> --- "James F. Ryan III" <av8r567@optonline.net> wrote:
>>
>>>> With an automatic, you always have to go through reverse to go
>>>> from P to D.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The opposite of left is right.
>>> The opposite of down is up.
>>> The opposite of reverse is forward.
>>>
>>> So, why do automatics have "D"rive instead of "F"orward?
>>> Anybody know the origin of this sillyness?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Cynical Jim Ryan in Salt Lake City
>>> '91 PLUS - All white/mocha
>>
>>
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