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Things You Don't See Anymore Part 3
- Thread starter Richland123
- Start date
I had an old Dart with 3 on the tree. The shift linkage was so worn out if you tried to just pull or push the stick it was subject to jamming up enough it required getting under the hood to get it freed up. You had to kind of nudge the stick in the right general direction and let it find its own way. Most anything else resulted in a jammed up linkage.
Surprisingly enough, there are several different Spirograph kits currently available, but the first time I’ve seen one in forever was yesterday when I stopped at a yard sale to check out some offshore trolling rods. I couldn’t make a deal on any of the reels, but I saw a Spirograph set on another table and I realized it had not seen one since elementary school. I googled it and they are available at all the usual big box stores
Yep! I picked one up for one of my magnificent nieces several years ago, when they were first re-introduced. And just this weekend, I saw a "compact" version that comes in a metal tin among the little tables of gifts and trinkets at a well-known retail art supply store.
For those who want to play with a digital version, there's also this option, which is just freaking awesome:
Inspiral Web
The web version of the Inspiral app. Written in TypeScript, using D3.js.
Yup. In the late '70's I had a '65 Chevy window van-- three on the tree. Like fhm555, the shift linkage had seem better days and was extremely sloppy. To move from 3rd gear back to 1st, you had to move the shifter part way into second then come back down and through the neutral gate. If you tried to come up from 3rd and go across neutral, it would hang every time. Since the van had no hood, you had to reach in under the van, grab the long shifter rod and tug on it to free it up. Of course, now the car was in neutral and hopefully you got out from under the car before it could possibly start rolling.
Once you got the feel "proper" shifting, it wasn't a problem. Everyone who drove that van would hang the linkage at basically the first stop they came to. This was in spite of giving them a warning and explaining the shifting idiosyncrasy.
Oh, the days of being young, poor and driving old beater cars.
My Ford started with a three on the tree, and it started playing up so I ended up converting it to a floor shift using a setup from a 4 speed box. Whilst working on the linkages which I had to fabricate, I stuffed up and ended up with first reverse where third top should be and second top where first second should be, the reverse position was left empty. It was great when you knew what you were doing when driving it, but made the car unstealable because the only people who could drive it were those "in the know".
Before my botched carpal tunnel surgery, I could write (poorly) in cursive. It’s even worse now and even my printing is bad unless I really take my time. But I never tried it with a pen and ink set. Heck, I’m not even allowed to have unsupervised use of magic markers.I write in cursive with a pen and ink from a bottle
I remember about 25 years ago watching in amusement as 3 or 4 young parking valets struggled to figure out a three on the tree. Sadly I had to leave before they figured it out. I now see signs that valet parking won’t park manual transmission vehicles.
- Oct 22, 2015
- 21,165
- 256,842
- Disclosures
- I am an affiliate for Ari Cap.
I would post a record cleaning kit in reply to that, but the vinyl resurgence has brought those back into common use. 
I may still have a VHS head cleaning kit somewhere around here, though.
I may still have a VHS head cleaning kit somewhere around here, though.
The talk about column shifters here reminded me of a friends Chrysler with a push-button automatic transmission.
The buttons were on the left-hand side of the dashboard.
Another friend who had a column shifter in his car was so used to shifting that car that one time when we were in his parents car as we accelerated onto a highway on ramp he attempted to shift into a higher gear on the column mounted automatic shift handle. It was fortunate that he did not wreck the transmission, but I did spill beer all over the front floor when the wheels momentarily locked up before he pulled the shifter back out of reverse.
The buttons were on the left-hand side of the dashboard.
Another friend who had a column shifter in his car was so used to shifting that car that one time when we were in his parents car as we accelerated onto a highway on ramp he attempted to shift into a higher gear on the column mounted automatic shift handle. It was fortunate that he did not wreck the transmission, but I did spill beer all over the front floor when the wheels momentarily locked up before he pulled the shifter back out of reverse.
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Yep...I remember when "company" was a big deal. And when "company" was coming over, you'd better act right!.
