Old Technology That is Still Better Than It's Modern Day Tech Replacement

[farace]

Laycock d'Normanville or something else vampire-ish sounding. My 1973 1800ES had that. It was activated by a stalk on the column, and only available when the transmission was in 4th gear.

My dad's 1954 Plymouth Belvedere convertible has some kind of overdrive. He never got around to showing me how it worked, but I got the impression it wasn't just the top gear in the tranny, but rather something that is separately engaged. (Unlike my '71 Alfa Spider, where fifth gear is a mild overdrive. Come to think of it, the '76 Plymouth Feather Duster I once owned (yes, it was a real model) had overdrive as fourth gear.)

 

[blastoff99]

My dad's 1954 Plymouth Belvedere convertible has some kind of overdrive. He never got around to showing me how it worked, but I got the impression it wasn't just the top gear in the tranny, but rather something that is separately engaged. (Unlike my '71 Alfa Spider, where fifth gear is a mild overdrive. Come to think of it, the '76 Plymouth Feather Duster I once owned (yes, it was a real model) had overdrive as fourth gear.)

Yes. That's different than what I was mentioning. On the Plymouth, OD was available on any of the (probably three) gears, so you could have 1, 1OD, 2, 2OD, etc.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

yeah, but was the overdrive tube or solid state?

 

[tlc1976]

I don't know about the newer cars, but my 96 Cherokee stick is geared numerically lower than the auto, and gets better mileage. Also the tow rating is less than half of the auto. Apples to apples the 4.0. My 89 Celebrity (4 speed auto, lockup) has almost 300k and still gets around 35 mpg highway.

Knock on wood I've never burned up an auto trans and I've had many with 300k before the rest of the vehicle rusted out around it. Have only owned sticks about 4 years, but I'd think a clutch would be in the works at some point by 300k. Not an easy thing for me.

I like my OBD1 vehicles. You get the reliability and consistency of fuel injection and electronic ignition, but the simplicity of having just the essentials to run the engine.

Old tech that's better? How about the old toilets before this water saving thing? I've seen more pipes get backed up with TP and crap because there's not enough water anymore to carry it all away. What extra water you use costs less than a plumber.

Old gas cans were better without the finicky spout. Old LP bottles were better without the OPD valve that sticks. Skinny tires are better for snowy and slushy conditions but seem harder to find now.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

solder with actual lead in it

 

[TOOL460002]

Glass soda bottles. Saving them to be refilled and re-bottled was easy, efficient, and better for the environment than sending the empties to a recycling plant. Do they still use that system anywhere? I haven't seen it anywhere outside of Africa, and that was a long time ago.

I've seen more pipes get backed up with TP and crap because there's not enough water anymore to carry it all away. What extra water you use costs less than a plumber.

I would be more worried if you found something other than TP and crap in your plumbing!

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

Automobile manual transmissions.

I grant that they generally cause a drop in gas mileage, but you can't beat them for control of the vehicle or for mechanical longevity. It's also well within the capability of any DIY type to replace a clutch, while average Joe/Jane can't rebuild an automatic tranny or CVT.

And yes, I know they're a pain in stop and go traffic, but I don't live where that's a major concern.

The only rig I've ever had that wasn't a stick is my AWD GMC Safari, and that's only because GM didn't make it with a manual trans. I HATE automatics, the only advantage they have is less work (personally, I like the 'work', keeps my mind on the task at hand). Also, most sticks (not counting today's 537-speed autos) deliver better fuel economy than autos in the same rig with the same motor, if that's not been your experience then shift earlier, haha!

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

Carburetors vs EFI

It's love/hate. EFI is dramatically better in most ways, but I can fix a carb on the side of the road with simple tools and no money in my pocket. Can't beat firing up instantly when it's 10 below, though... That's why my toys and tools (dirt bikes, chainsaws, mowers, generator, etc.) are carb'd and my cars aren't.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

DE razors and wet shaving in general. My 1960's Gillette Super Speed combined with a proper shave brush and soap gives a superior shave to any modern razor/ canned cream. It is also far less expensive.

Most hand tools. Most modern hand tools ( and many power tools) are inferior to vintage equivalents.
The same can be said for firearms.

I haven't shaved (aside from the wild ones at the top of my cheeks) in probably 10 years, but when I did I used a safety razor and soap and a brush. Far better shave, and I didn't get horrible razor burn like I did with my cartridge razor.

Totally with you on the tools front, too. Aside from really pro stuff (Proto, Snap-On, Klein, Wiha, Knipex, Hilti, etc.), modern tools are kinda disposable. Most of my house tools are US-made Craftsman, at least as old as I am (31), and when I use them I ask a lot of them. They keep kicking. I recently bought a Craftsman pass-thru socket set, I didn't realize they were Chinese or I wouldn't have bought them. I broke the ratchet three times, and I have breaker bars and thusly didn't try to do things with them that I shouldn't. I finally gave the set to my little cousin and replaced it with a similar Armstrong set. All my AC power tools are old Milwaukee stuff, my cordless are 19.2v Craftsman: JUNK! They're slowly being replaced by 20v US-made Dewalt stuff. Admittedly, Craftsman power tools are designed for light-duty use, but there's just no excuse for how much they suck.

The tools I use to make a living are a different story. All Klein and Proto, with the exception of a Johnson torpedo level and a Wiha terminating screwdriver, Klein belt/bags, Estwing hammers, etc. No price is really too high when you're buying something to put food on your table/maybe save your life.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

My five speed Plymouth Colt was hands down the easiest stick car I've ever driven, and being a mechanic for the last 34 years you can imagine I've driven a bunch of stick cars. Otoh, the Muncie with a Ram ceramic clutch in my 68 SS396 ElCamino was about the worst I've driven.

I had a '78 El Camino (factory 3-speed, 305) with a .030-over '67 327 with Edelbrock Pro-Flo EFI and World motown heads and a healthy Lunati cam, a Tremec 5-speed, and a Centerforce dual-friction clutch. Driving that thing around in town was a real bastard, but man, did it do awesome 2nd-gear burnouts. With the EFI and 3.55 gears and an OD trans, it got 20+ on the highway. I traded it even up for a 2000 S10 ZR2 (standard cab, stick), because it was a more reasonable driver. I regret that decision to this day.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

Rock n Roll music

Even more dramatically, country music.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

My TBI 4.3 K1500 gets 12 MPG on the highway, empty. Good ol' fuel injection.

To be fair, TBI is barely fuel injection, haha! My AWD GMC Safari with 3.73s and 29" A/Ts averages 16 and gets 20+ on the highway. My 91 2WD S10 with the same 4.3 but TBI and a stick got 16, tops, average 14.

 

[JACink]

Old tech that's better? How about the old toilets before this water saving thing? I've seen more pipes get backed up with TP and crap because there's not enough water anymore to carry it all away. What extra water you use costs less than a plumber.

Where I live we don't have enough water to get us through the summer, so I think it is better that people call plumbers now and again versus not having running water for 2 months of the year.

(Also, I am pretty sure that plumbers predate toilets, so really, we are using vintage technology by calling the plumber )

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

you're saying after they lock up the torque converter there is a final upgear to 2:1 engine revs?

Final drive is the term for axle ratio, but I think he might be mistaken, as the highest (numerically lowest) rearend gears I've ever heard of were in the 2.20 range. With less than 2:1 in the axle, you'd have to have an awful lot of power and slip (converter or clutch) to get rolling.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

My dad's 1954 Plymouth Belvedere convertible has some kind of overdrive. He never got around to showing me how it worked, but I got the impression it wasn't just the top gear in the tranny, but rather something that is separately engaged. (Unlike my '71 Alfa Spider, where fifth gear is a mild overdrive. Come to think of it, the '76 Plymouth Feather Duster I once owned (yes, it was a real model) had overdrive as fourth gear.)

Fun fact! That overdrive was actually 3rd gear. They switched the shift forks/linkage around so it still shifted like a normal 4-speed, but if you look at the guts of a regular A833 next to one of the OD models, 4th is still 1:1 and 3rd is actually the OD gear.

 

[Thegrandwazoo]

I have to say, I'm predominantly impressed with modern technology, but there have been a few balls dropped when 'moving forward'. I'm a huge fan of the automotive footswitch dimmer. I've always had older cars, my '01 van is the newest I've owned by 10 years, the majority of them being 60s/70s rigs. Why it had to become part of the column jumble is beyond me.

.22 rifles. I don't know why, but it seems like after about '80, firearm manufacturers REALLY started cutting corners on rimfires. Probably Reaganomics, but regardless, my old Marlins and Remingtons will shoot rings around new ones, and the only trigger work I've ever done on any of them is polishing mating surfaces to slick them up. I guess rimfires are thought of as a 'kid's rifle', worthy of cheesiness, because other guns have improved dramatically since .22s started to suck.

TVs. My first good tv was a Sony Bravia CRT, flat screen, 1080p (36", I'm pretty sure, the SOB probably weighed 100 pounds). It's a drag that it quit on me, because its picture was every bit as sharp as my new 4K LG, with way better contrast.

Specialty shops (music shops, gun shops, record stores, bike shops, etc.). They've all gone downhill in the face of the information age where you can buy stuff without putting your pants on, because of fat, lazy Americans.

Cigarettes. I don't really smoke anymore, only when I drink beer, but the second 'fire-safe' cigarettes became a thing, I quit liking them. Some friends of mine and I bought like 10 cartons of the old, non-FS Camel studs when we learned that this garbage was what we had to look forward to.

Beer. This is a cultural trend, and it may or may not die out, but nowadays every beardy hipster in North America is making 'craft ales', and there's a good reason there didn't used to be a market for coffee/beef stock/kangaroo smegma imperial IPA. It sucks, and no amount of hipster douchery will make it as good as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or, if you're broke, good ol' Pabst.

In short, virtually everything. New stuff is pretty universally 'better', but a lot of the time the inadequacies of (and remedies for) old tech makes it more desirable and often 'better' for the task at hand.

 

[NullPorch]

Raw, analog, and/or live sound is better than digital and over-produced?

 

[Mark Reccord]

solder with actual lead in it

Lead-free solder is the bane of my existence for hand soldering anything. If you can do wave or reflow soldering it's not so bad but I'm glad my industry has an ROHS exemption for it all the same.

"Better" is a weird thing when it comes to technology. As an example, for most things, modern electronics technology is unequivocally better than old school stuff like vacuum tubes. Most of the things we take for granted (like, say the smartphone I'm using to type this) would be totally impossible with old-school discrete electronics, so in that sense digital and very highly integrated electronics is vastly superior. That said, when it comes to making or listening to music, old school analog and/or tube stuff is much more preferable to a lot of folks and the reason for that is that the distortions and idiosyncrasies of the "inferior" electronics adds something to the signal that we find pleasing to the ear. Assuming I don't have to move them or do a festival with 10 bands, I still strongly prefer analog mixing consoles because the little bits of low order distortion in the preamps and summing buses sounds good and digital desks for all their features and convenience don't have that. Also, even though I am quite proficient on digital consoles I still prefer the analog format where all the controls are on the first layer.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Glass soda bottles. Saving them to be refilled and re-bottled was easy, efficient, and better for the environment than sending the empties to a recycling plant. Do they still use that system anywhere?

Someone somewhere is doing it. There's a local tractor supply company that has a lot of old-time type stuff, including bib-top overalls & RC cola in glass bottles. They've got one of those old Coke fridges with the bottle opener right on the front.

 

[farace]

Fun fact! That overdrive was actually 3rd gear. They switched the shift forks/linkage around so it still shifted like a normal 4-speed, but if you look at the guts of a regular A833 next to one of the OD models, 4th is still 1:1 and 3rd is actually the OD gear.

I remember that, now that you mention it. I had a helluva time convincing the transmission shop I hadn't assembled the linkage backwards. To prove me wrong, they actually put the car on a lift and watched the tire speed as they shifted through the gears. And I was right and they weren't.