Or some of both? All depends…among other things, whether we’re talking 1950 or 1973. Powerglide was the first automatic transmission available on a low-priced car. As well as the last of its kind almost a quarter century later. Yes, the Powerglide’s longevity was legendary, both in terms of its three decades of utilization, as well as its bullet-proof-ness. And before we complain about its two-speed-ness, let’s keep this single thought in mind: it started out as a one-speed.
Well, strictly speaking, it had two speeds, but it didn’t shift automatically between them. The Powerglide was of the “slush-box” school of thought regarding automatics, unlike the four-speed Hydramatic used by Olds and Cadillac. A torque converter can be set up for a very wide range of effective “gear range”, and the PG, along with Buick’s Dynaflow, went that route. That meant leisurely take-offs, which was helped a bit by the fact that early Powerglide Chevys always slightly had more powerful engines teamed up with them.
It was a complete drive-train package, with an up-rated 105 hp six that sported hydraulic valve lifters, and a lower (numeric) ratio axle to help compensate for the mileage loss. According to an extensive survey of owners, PG had an average 1.5 mpg fuel economy loss.
Of course, the original PG could be shifted into Low manually, for grades, as well as snappier take-offs, up to a maximum of 40 mph. That manual shift could be harsh, and rough on the transmission, so beginning in 1953, PG got automatic shifting between first and top gear. Progress. Or faster progress.
The first generation Powerglides had cast iron cases, built into 1963. Starting in 1962, the aluminum case PG superseded it, in part because a lighter version for the Chevy II was a necessity. There was also a HD version of the aluminum box PG, which has become immortal as a simple, efficient and rugged two-speed drag-racing box.
The PG would shift into top gear depending of course on rear axle ratios and the engine’s rev range. The highest tested shift point was 76mph, on a ’63 409 (340 hp) Impala coupe, with a standard 3.31 axle ratio. A typical mid-late sixties 283 equipped big Chevy would shift at between 50-55 mph. Therein lay the Powerglide’s shortcoming. Cars were getting heavier, speeds higher, and expectations were being raised, especially by Chrysler’s excellent three-speed Torqueflite and the improved Ford C6 and C4 three-speeds.
Below is a brief excerpt from a 1965 Popular Science test of 1965 full size cars, including a 352 equipped Galaxie, 318 Fury, and 283 Impala. Admirably, the Chevy was the lightest car of the three, but that wasn’t enough to overcome its handicap of no intermediate gear, and delivered the longest acceleration runs and the worst fuel mileage. Here’s how PS summed up the issue:
The result was a 12.8 second run to sixty and a 14.9 mpg mileage. That the 352 Ford eked out a better mileage number (15.8) is testament to the reality that when even a more efficient engine has to run harder, in less efficient engine speed ranges, it will use more fuel. The Chevy’s V8/Powerglide power train was top dog in 1955, but ten years later, it was showing the strain of time and changing expectations.
Sure, it was immensely reliable, which is undoubtedly why Chevy stuck with it after their disastrous 1958 Turbo-Glide crash. But by 1970 or so, when cars were burdened by ever more weight and accessories, it was undeniably past its sell-by-date. The modern Turbo-Hydramatic started becoming available, initially only on the new big-block motors, starting in 1965.
1971 was the last year for the Powerglide in the large Chevies; the Vega chugged along for another two more years. Perhaps the ad should say “our apologies to people who expect only three-speed automatics in their Impalas”. I drove a 1971 Chevy taxi, with the 250 six and the PG; it probably had half a million miles on it, so its durability was unquestioned. But man, was that ever a slow pig….
Legend and slug, all in one. So what does the jury say?
Powerglide gave up both mileage and performance for durable low cost. It ended the same year as the first energy crisis. Just a lucky coincidence?
One of the minor advantages of Powerglide for really big engines — you could get it behind a 409 for a while — was that its lighter internals consumed less power than the Turbo Hydramatic; one estimate I saw suggested that it was something like half as much. I suppose if you didn’t really need the extra range of multiplication, that would have been a plus.
One thing that a number of the more scholarly period reviews point out is that despite its lack of a passing gear, Powerglide did have advantages over a three-speed manual transmission in some slower driving situations, like climbing hills in the 30-40 mph range. Car Life and Road & Track used to do Tapley meter measurements, and the Powerglide’s torque converter did give it the edge both there and in off-the-line acceleration. Since Powerglide was being sold as an alternative to a three-speed stick, there’s something to be said for that.
I read somewhere that the Ford C6 “used” up to 60hp, behind the biggest engines. Don’t know if it was true, but it had the rep of being the least efficient of the more modern three-speed automatics.
The Powerglide’s efficiency was undoubtedly a plus, and one of the reasos the racers still like it.
The C6 isn’t that bad it’s only slightly less efficient than the 727 (since much of the tech is licensed 727 designs) and a good chunk ahead of the TH400.
Although you often see the trans loss expressed as a percentage of the input power it is pretty much constant regardless of input power.
Car Craft did a power loss test a long while back and came up with a basic guideline for stock transmissions.
Powerglide 18 hp
TH-350 36 hp
TH-400 44 hp
Ford_C-6 55-60 hp
Ford_C-4 28 hp
Ford_FMX 25 hp
Chrysler_A904 25 hp
Chrysler_727 45 hp
Thanks for that! So that 60 hp number I read somewhere for the C6 was real. Fascinating; and yes, the PG was mighty efficient indeed.
My recollection is that PG-equipped early Corvairs were equal or better to the 3-speed in fuel economy. And a Corvair PG is understressed and bulletproof.
Curiously though, the reason the turbo Corvairs were never sold with PG was NOT that the extra power posed any hazard to the transmission. Quite the contrary — the transmission was a mortal hazard to the engine. In testing, GM was unable to eliminate an overboosting condition and/or detonation that occurred when the PG upshifted. It was transient, but enough to cause engine damage. Today, with computers coordinating the boost, timing, shifting and throttle on an instantaneous basis, this would surely be an easily solved problem.
Yeah, the Spider engine lacked a wastegate. The concept was not unknown at the time, of course — the Oldsmobile Jetfire engine had a wastegate, as well as fluid injection. (In fact, there was a switch at the bottom of the injection tank that automatically popped open the wastegate if the fluid reservoir was empty, to avoid engine damage.) However, the Corvair engine was a good deal less complex and less expensive.
Nothing wrong with the Powerglide at all. It moved the car, reliable, tough – when used properly.
Like everything else, it had its day.
The problem is the fact that they kept using it long after it’s day was done.
With today’s unreliable and convoluted transmissions, slippin’ and slidin’ in a Powerglide would be a welcome relief. Within the past year I’ve had to put the third AOD Ford trans into our Lincoln Town Car with less that 100K miles on it after I’d had the old trans serviced and fluid and filter changed.
Does anyone have any experience with a 1950-1952 Chevy Powerglide in poor traction? The MoPar Fluid Drives were renowned for their superior performance in snow, rain, and mud. Was the early Powerglide similar in performance?
Then either you are putting in high mile used units, the person rebuilding them isn’t doing a proper job or you are just really really hard on transmissions. Yes the early AOD had it’s problems but by the 88 and newer AODs (or an earlier unit rebuilt to the final specs), the AOD-E and the 4R7x transmissions they were dead reliable and able to last 300K plus w/o needing a rebuild.
I had forgotten about the original powerglide shifting characteristics. I’ve never driven one but my Dad mentioned having one like that before my time. I guess it was better than nothing in 1950, but GM should have left it behind in the early 60s rather than design an aluminum case for it. I guess they decided to stick with it for a few more years after the Turboglide.
I’ve had a number of powerglide equipped Chevy’s over the years. Unless I planned to flip the car for a profit quickly, the PG went to the dump and in went a Turbohydro.
WheeeeeeeEEE KaTHUNK. Deadly sin by ’62 at the latest.
1950s? Genius!
In 1965 and up? Hello, Engineering Department? Hello, anybody home? Could you take some time off designing crazy concept cars to design a simple durable 3 speed auto? Reverse engineer a TorqueFlite if you have to.
Beginning in 1965 the TH400 was available in the full-size Chevy. Granted, only with the big blocks at first. My uncle had a ’66 Impala wagon with the 396/TH400 combo. This sharing of the same transmission from Chevy to Cadillac I thought is the type of thing GM is criticized so much for on this board. A Chevy had to have inferior content compared to Cadillac or you ruined the grand vision.
I say greatest hit, at least for the cast iron version. I had one in a ’57 210 and dad’s first automatic was in a ’59 Brookwood wagon. Both cars had the 283. When he traded in the ’59, he was sure glad he didnt have a Turboglide. Apparently that was death to resale value.
But there’s no reason the PowerGlide should have hung on till 1971. That makes what was supposedly the greatest company in the world look like a poor shell of itself. You can make a rope drive, OHC I 6, experiment with aluminum engines but can’t replace the Powerglide?
Although I did get a good laugh at a late 60s Chevy I saw at a car show where someone had labled the PowerGlide gear selector “P, R, N, Fast, Faster”
> A Chevy had to have inferior content compared to Cadillac or you ruined the grand vision.
No. A Chevy had to be just a bit better than Ford, and later Toyota. A Cadillac simply had to have uber-technology BS that could be hugely expensive and unreliable and an utter failure in the economy field, but not a problem for the luxury field. Of course the parts in the Cadillac would have to be over-engineered to keep them from being unreliable, thus greatly increasing cost to customer, but then the target customers weren’t exactly cost-conscious. Later, when the bugs had been worked out and the design could be made reliable cheaply, Chevy would get it, and Caddy moved on to more exotic stuff.
Reverse engineer a TorqueFlite if you have to.
Easy to say, not so easy to do. And eventually, that’s not too far from what GM actually did.
I’ll attribute the following to Ate Up With Motor (I’m sure Aaron could add to this): There was a patented Simpson gearset in the TorqueFlite that required payment of a licensing fee. The first Turbo-Hydramatic (the THM400) included a Simpson gearset, which was licensed to GM.
Late to the party, but yes, the C6, TorqueFlite, and TH400 all used variations of the patented gearset developed by Howard W. Simpson, a former Ford engineer. Chrysler was not the first major automaker to license Simpson’s design (Ford actually did first), but they were the first to put it into production. Many automakers — including Daimler-Benz — eventually followed suit, in part because the Simpson gearset was simpler and cheaper to make.
Power glides were fitted to Holdens and Vauxhalls I had one in a 186cube Hk wagon with a very tired engine at 55 mph flooring the throttle produced more noise and smoke with the downshift but not speed with only 5 functioning cylinders true the trans never broke ans was the last good piece of the car rust having consumed most of the panelwork.Im not sure it was a DS untill the 70s though here it had been replaced with trimatics which werent as strong behind V8s
This transmission should have been dead by 1960. What’s sadder is that GM had a four-speed automatic in the early 50′s in their high-end cars. At least they should have given Chevy a 3-speed automatic like Ford and Dodge.
I’ve driven a couple cars with 3 speed automatics and found them to be kind of revvy on the highway. At least you can usually get a downshift to 2nd when flooring it at 60 mph – like when you might want to pass on a 2-lane road. My cousin’s junky ’75 Dart with a 318 and 3-speed automatic never felt underpowered when I drove it in the late 90′s.
I am grateful for all six gears in my wife’s 2012 Mini Cooper Aisin automatic. That little 1.6 liter 121 horsepower engine needs all of them, and as a result, it pulls to 60 mph in what is probably around 9 seconds and turns over around 2500 rpm at 60 mph in top gear.
My ’77 Chevelle 3 speed coupled with the 2.56 rear axle can just about do 60 in 1st gear, and 90 in 2nd. It doesn’t have the power to pull much more than 110 in high though. But at 70mph its turning a lazy 2100 rpm.
That same relaxed cruising engine speed translates into slow performance overall as well.
My last 3 speed equipped car (86 Pontiac 6000-STE) at 70 was buzzing along at 3500 rpm at 70. redlined out at 125mph. with the 3.18 final drive.
The last PG equipped car I drove was my boss’ 1969 Caprice in 1998. It was kind of annoying and a slug off the line.
Deadly sin until it became a true auto that would start out in first then greatest hit till the early 60′s and then back to deadly sin from there on out.
I don’t claim to have an extensive knowledge of powerglides, however, I may have a longer span than most.
In 1960 I was a 16 year old with a drivers license and a father with a 55 chev 265/power pack/powerglide. At least in the early years the shift pattern was an accident waiting to happen. So was I. I decided I needed to downshift to beat another car and downshifted to reverse at probably 60mph. It would probably have been amusing to watch. I am certain I had a fecal hemorrhage. Funny thing happened to the car – nothing at all. I started it up and drove away.
Fast forward about 50 years to a retired starving teacher who was renovating a 57 210 handyman special. After sitting since 1980 or so the transmission seemed to work wonderfully well. I got some work done on it but it worked fine. The transmission seems to not find park when adjusted so it has a reverse and no reverse if it has a park. In it’s new life I think I may put a lokar floor shift and do away with some linkage.
In short: It takes a licking and keeps on ticking. It has bad fuel economy but it’s next life will be low mileage so who cares. I think it was far more winner than loser. You get what you pay for one supposes. I don’t think I will put in a TH350 unless this thing craters. I go back and forth with that.
Well good evening from geezerville.
My first car was a well-worn ’57 Chevy Blue Flame Six with a glide. It had the old shift quadrant with L just to the left of R on the right side. One day I was torturing the engine, pedal-to-the-metal in Low when I hit some railroad tracks. The jolt was enough to knock the shifter into Reverse. The rear tires locked up and the car did a magnificent nose dive. The engine died and all I could think of was what lie I was going to tell my father. But I saw that the shifter was in R, so I moved it to N, hit the key. The car started right up and I was back to being an asshole.
There were hydramatics in the pats bin. I never understood why Chevy stuck with the PG for so long.
The original reason Chevy didn’t use Hydra-Matic was because until the mid-fifties they (and Buick) had a torque tube rear axle. Hydra-Matic tended to shift pretty hard, particularly on the 2-3, and the jerk would be transmitted through the mass of the torque tube as a thunk in the floorpan. The H-M was also complicated and expensive, particularly the later dual-coupling version.
That is a good point, Ate Up With Motor, but for a few dollars more, Pontiacs got Hydra-Matic . . . I know . . Hotchkiss rear end . . . but . . . playing Devil’s Advocate here. I think PG’s simplicity was in price spread out across X units . . . keeping the cost down and more palatable to the low-price field.
The Powerglide was a boon for low priced cars in the first half of the 1950s, and was probably acceptable in a standard Chevy up to around 1960. After that, their simplicity and durability were their only benefits. The Chrysler Fluid Drive was simple and durable too, but we didn’t see those past 1954. The Chrysler PowerFlite was a fairly close competitor to the PG, but again, it was gone by 1960 as a cheap automatic for Plymouth buyers who did not want to spend extra for the Torqueflite..
This gets me thinking – did anyone build more bad transmissions than GM? At least until the Chrysler Ultradrive. Let’s see – Turboglide, Roto Hydramatic, then the THM 200. In 1962-64 you had to buy a Bonneville or a Cadillac to get a really good tranny in a GM car. I am no expert on the various Dynaflows, so I cannot comment on those. No wonder the PG was so endearing – it worked.
Or a 1964 Buick Electra, Wildcat or LeSabre wagon.
The Twin Turbine Dyanflows were reliable, but not the Triple-Turbine units which were discontinued after 1959; two speed Buick derived “Jetway” or “Jetaway” autos (Olds, Pontiac and Buick mid-sizers through ’66, and the ‘standard’ auto tranny through ’69 on Pontiac mid-sizers) weren’t bad either.
Agree strongly on the Roto Hydra-Matic (my low mile ’61 Catalina at the time hemmoraged it’s ATM all over my High School Auto Shop floor on start up); THM 200 (personal experience with ’78 Skylark suddenly slipping out of third into second before it went “Tango Uniform”).
Back to the Jetway/Jetaways and Twin-Turbine Dynaflows . . . . these were pretty rugged units . . . .
My main experience with Powerglide was in a rented Vega in Las Vegas in September 1972. Wind, wind, wind, then thunk into direct drive at about 35, as though I’d driven into molasses. Definitely a deadly sin in that setting.
How about in the ’60′s the Toyoglide?
I really don’t know why I am such a staunch defender of the Powerglide, in fact, I could be called a Powerglidonian, as it were. I grew up around Chevrolet cars of all sorts and Canadian Pontiacs (not a big difference) and most of them had Powerglide. Not a single single member of my zillion member Irish Catholic family ever complained about Powerglide; in fact, most loved it because it was so reliable. Bodies would rust to dust around a Stovebolt Six and a Powerglide. I have never heard of anybody replacing one and in taxi circles, they are legandary, although before my time.
The idle of a Chevy with Powerglide will forever be part of my aural vocabulary, that high pitched wheeeeeeeee of the pump of the Powerglide and the knock-knock-knock of it having Drive selected, followed by the “clack” of the inevitably broken motor mount….
In my family, anyway, people bought Chevrolet cars because the were simple, reliable, drove well and were good value for money. In 1965 America the Impala may have been the most popular but in penny-pinching Canada the Biscayne ruled the streets, often as not with Stovebolt, and about 50/50 three on the three and Powerglide. My clan appreciated the rock like reliability of the Poweglide, which accounts to all the lore I heard about its greatness.
Being dead reliable and long-lived is a very considerable virtue to defend.
I’d like to think we can both be that way, Paul…..
PRNDL heads unite! (unless it’s before 1961 then it’s PNDLR!)
The reason your family never complained about the Glide is that the Pope issued an encyclical threatening eternal damnation for dissing the transmission. This applied only Canadian Irish Catholics.
Complicating matters even more is we were Irish Catholics from Quebec.
I owned a 1965 Malibu with a 283 and PG. I had no complaints, but the ‘bu was a lighter car than the Impala. The PG did die on me after a couple of years, and a bunch of miles. I had only paid $500 for the car. I got my money’s worth.
In this world of CAFE, catalytic converters, and and mandatory airbags, we now need 6 speeds with lock-up torque converters to make ends meet.
The test Paul links to shows the Powerglide equipped, 283 CID Impala going 0-60 in over 12 seconds and getting 14 mpg. As a comparison, a 2012 Camry will go 0-60 in the neighbourhood of 8.5 seconds and get 30 mpg.
I doubt a modern consumer would accept the kind of economy and power a 1965 Impala delivered, not to mention its level of safety.
Or you could do what I did, get rid of my ticking time bomb of a Honda 5-speed automatic (52,000 mi the clock, just about when these things require the writing of big checks) and bought a 2012 Subaru Impreza with the snowmobile transmission. So far no complaints. It’s just an appliance.
What car made in the past two decades isn’t a ticking time bomb?
For a big part of my life I more or less assumed that if a 1960s GM car didn’t have a manual transmission then it had basically the same good 3-speed auto that I grew up with in cars from the 1970s.
It’s stupid, but I thought -much- less of those 60s GM cars when I found out they only had the crappy Powerglide. For the life of me I don’t know why I thought they’d have by default the same tranny I was used to.
Due to the longevity, I’d say Deadly Sin. It had its day in the sun, with the other 2-speed autos, but Ford and Chrysler stopped with the 2-speed autos long before GM did.
I had the opportunity to compare a PG/327 2bbl 210 hp ’69 Camaro against a ’68 El Camino with the 155 hp 250 Six and a three speed manual as they were my first and third cars. The Camaro was loaded down with power brakes and steering and had a/c, the Camino was a stripper with power nothing, very basic, I thought it lucky that there was an AM radio. I have no idea what the axle gear ratios were on either one.
The Camaro was faster until the PG went into drive, then it was not any better than the Six. I got asked if my Camino was a V-8 a few times because it would launch from a stop so well. The three on the tree had two faults, the shifter mechanism on the steering column shaft under the hood would sometimes bind up and leave me stuck in one gear if I shifted too fast. A large slot screwdriver and some muscle would pop it back into alignment. It also ate clutches, I never got more than 30,000 miles from them.
The PG was dead reliable, I never had trouble with it or the 327. The Camino would get 18 mpg, the Camaro would get 14, which I attribute to the already discussed faults of the PG.
Looking at my copy of Flory’s American Cars 1960-1972, I see that the PG option cost $263 over a 3 speed manual. I also see that the price difference between a PG and a THM was just $48. It was already loaded to the gills like a mini-Impala, why not spend the extra green? That $48 and a $20 4 barrel carb kept me from remembering my Camaro as a truly great car that was worthy of the hype in Hot Rod and Super Chevy. I just remember it as a disappointment that made me appreciate my Ghia.which was hand-me-down car #2.
The book also shows that the ONLY auto offering for the Corvette until the 1967 model year is the PG despite the THM being available for the full size line two years earlier. I can only imagine the hell of driving a PG equipped ‘Vette with the 250 hp 283.
What you forget is back in those days, automatic penetration on a Corvette was very small – I wouldn’t be surprised if it was less than 15%. The automatic Corvette didn’t take off until the C3′s, and became ubiquitous on the C4′s.
“automatic penetration on a Corvette was very small” – Because it was a Powerglide!
20 – 25%, in the C1.
If I recall in the early ’60′s, Chevy literature described the 250hp 327/Powerglide combo as the “boulverad cruiser” setup . . .
I’m surprised that no one has yet mentioned a particular PowerGlide advantage: Its compact size. It allowed for a smaller transmission tunnel intruding into the interior. Among the criticisms of the 1968 Corvette was a lack of interior space; the center tunnel had to be widened to accommodate the Turbo Hydra-Matic 400 that was made available that year.
Overall, I say it’s a greatest hit. It introduced millions to the alternative of driving with an automatic transmission; let’s face it, not everyone can drive a manual (for example, a friend of mine who lost his left leg in military service, and my mother, who turns 79 today and is otherwise a great driver…no accidents or tickets, ever).
As for hanging around too long, I’ll agree but say this: It was inexpensive, it was familiar and it more than got the job done for the majority of drivers. Its ubiquity ensured that, in the rare event that it failed, it could be fixed by just about anyone, anywhere. And talk about tough…I once read that the original durability testing involved shifting into reverse while the car was moving forward at 30 miles per hour or more…try doing that with the six-speed automatic in a modern vehicle!
The only problem with Powerglide in this article is the insistence of using the term “deadly sin”. Yeah, it’s a nice cheap headline – British tabloidism at its best. But deadly sin. No. The Cimmaron was a deadly sin. The Citation was a deadly sin. The Vega engine was a deadly sin.
Powerglide is one of those GM inventions that, mechanically, was damned good. All through it’s life. The only error on the transmission is how long they used it – and even then, although performance deficient, it worked. Reliably. It could be trusted.
I suppose in all fairness, we should be calling the Toyota Corolla’s automatic a “deadly sin” because it’s only a four speed where industry standard is now six. But we don’t. Because it’s made by Toyota, not GM? (‘Jes thinking out loud.)
If anything Powerglide was probably the (or at least one of) GM’s defining successes in the second half of the twentieth century.
Not really, Skye, there are plenty of Hyundai fanbois squawking about how great Hyundai is because of its six speed autos but the ubiquitous Corolla just keeps cranking out good cars are reasonable prices. Toyota won’t introduce anything to the masses until it is completely proven. Have a read of “The Toyota Way” and you’ll get a good insight on how they do business.
And of course you are right. Powerglide introduced millions to automatic shifting and like I have posted here many times, I can’t ever recall an owner complaining about it.
I don’t think the term deadly sin used with the PG in that it was junk, but rather, it became one after its shelf date had long since expired and it was still used in way too many Chevy’s until the early 70′s when it was phased out finally.
it’s biggest issue was as stated, a lack of an intermediate gear and it really did well with slightly more powerful cars and using it in the Vega which didn’t have decent performance with the manual added insult to injury to the car which was already plagued with copious other problems to start with.
My first car was a ’66 Impala with 283/PG, and I did enough two-lane rural driving where I might want to pass someone that I grew to hate the PG. Around town it was fine, and in freeway/turnpike service it was okay, but it was just awful on a two-lane. Kicking the PG to low resulted in a screaming engine that gave some acceleration followed by an upshift and suddenly little or no acceleration while I was hanging out in the left lane.
I’d say by the mid-60′s at least it was a deadly sin not to have a 3-speed at least available with the small block.
I am too young to remember it, but apparently circa 1962 as a toddler, I grabbed the shifter on my parents 1960 Impala and threw it into reverse at highway speed, with the whole family out for a Sunday drive. According to my father, the tires went up in smoke as they reversed. After, car no worse for wear. He recounts this story. The next day he phoned up the service department at the the dealer and and asks the man this:
“What would happen if I was driving along at 60 mph and threw it into reverse?”
The reply? “I’m thinking”.
On a Powerglide, you’d flat-spot the rear tires. On a modern car with a zillion-speed auto, you’d be taking out a line of credit on your house.
Also, nobody has yet pointed out that the original Powerglide concept of a 2-speed manually shifted slushbox was briefly resurrected in 68-70ish as the Torque-Drive, offered on 6-banger Camaros and Novas. Simply a Powerglide sans valve body.
I’d forgotten about that one. It’s big selling point was that it was priced about half of the price of Powerglide. And even with that, it didn’t sell much.
I am glad my Nova was past the PG as it was a ’74 so it had the 3spd autobox instead, mated to the 250 I6. That was a decent powertrain for the time. I think mine had the pozi rear end in which it was a limited slip diff as we tested it on gravel one day and while the left rear wheel had more of a tread left in the gravel, the right wheel left some too though not as much of one as we stomped on the accelerator.
It was the reason that car did very well in the snow, as did my ’78 Nova, but with the 305 Vi8 and 3spd autobox and I think it had the same pozi rear too.
For those who haven’t read it, I’d suggest you read Murilee Martin’s treatise on his car hell project, all 20 parts of it whereby he decided to make an art car, but not your usual car affixed with crap all over it and it ends up being his practical daily driver for a decade and it began life as a hooptied out ’65 Chevy Impala 4 door sedan with a tired 283 V8 and PG. He replaced the nearly dead motor with a cheaply rebuilt 350 and eventually, replaced the PG with a 3spd auto and that’s what he drove for most of that time.
Here is the link to Pt 20, but below the final installment are the links to the entire series.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/01/1965-impala-hell-project-part-20-the-end/
That series was epic!
I know and a very good insight to the times we all dealt with in the early 1990′s.
I had several PG equipped cars. It seemed adequate at the time (mid 60s) but even as GM fan, I knew Ford and Chrysler transmissions had better off the line performance and better passing performance at highway speeds. I had a ’68 Nova w/ 230/PG. I replaced the six with small block V8. The six cylinder PG had some lighter duty parts, and the V8 promptly broke something in it, so I swapped in a TH350. It was a big improvement.
At least for my driving, the PG was dependable (for the factory drivetrains) but the TH350 was too as long as it was maintained. I had no trouble getting well over 150K out of them, in fact never had to rebuild one. But I changed the fluid and cleaned the pan every 30K.
At least the context for me was there was a certain attractiveness in the mid 60s GM cars, and the PG (or other two speed auto) was a bit of a negative, but not enough to tip the purchase decision to something else.
In severe use, such as a taxi, a THM350 will last almost exactly 100,000 miles. This no matter what you do with it. I tried everything, from enormous extra coolers (which do help) to regular fluid changes, but nothing every got me past that 100,000 miles.
The 700R4 lasted half of that. In the end, I considered a THM350 a wear item as it only cost us in the neighbourhood of $500 to rebuild one and swap it out.Only the clutch packs failed, the planetary gears never do. Very rarely a valve body will pack up, but only after a trillion miles. This is actually cheaper than doing the upholstery in a Caprice, so it is cheap! We retailed them at $1200 and made a nice profit.
But I have never heard of a Powerglide failing in taxi use.
I did quite a bit of highway so the trans was in top gear a lot. I don’t tend ot have a lot of transmission problems with any cars.
Nothing will destroy a car like taxi use. First, the cars are in stop and go traffic almost all the time.Second, the drivers are not responsible for repairs, so they tend to run the bag off their cars. If you want to see the cars with the lowest dollar per mile, just look at what is plying the streets of your city as taxis. Here in Vancouver, it is 90% Toyota Prius. In the 1980-1995 period, it was 80% GM and the rest Ford and Mopar.
If I recall one of the reasons Chev stuck with the PG was the limited production capacity of the THM 350 at first and they went into higher end cars. It wasn’t until Buick started producing them (1969 I think ?) that there was enough to go around. My dad had a 69 Chev Townsman wagon with the 210hp 327 (the only 327 available in 69; If you wanted a 4bbl you got a 350) and PG. 327 died at 150K but trans still worked great! Also, back in ’97 I swapped a THM350 for the PG in a one owner 75k original mile ’57 Bel-Air 4 door w/ 283 and man, what a sweet driving car it became! That 2nd gear thing just might catch on….
I bought a 72 Nova 250-I6 PG back in the mid 90′s. At the time, I worked at the Chevy-Olds dealership, and the transmission expert (who had been a mechanic since Moses was a pup) told me the best thing to do with a PG was disconnect and cap the vacuum line to the vacuum modulator on the transmission. When I did, the upshift became more firm and definitive, a solid “thunk” at anything over 1/2 throttle. The downside was that in less than ideal traction conditions, that solid upshift could cause the rear end to break loose.
Trivia: the PG was one of the very few automatics that could be push-started. All you had to do was get it rolling fast enough to hit the torque converter stall speed.
Chrysler’s Powerflite had the same claim-to-fame (could be push-started).
You could also push-start a MoPar Fluid Drive, either the Dodge three-speed or the M5 and M6 four-speed.
Only two gears? So you got neither power nor economy? Sounds like the worst of both worlds, so definitely a Deadly Sin as far as I’m concerned. I get that they were reliable, but let’s face it, Rolls Royce used GM’s Hydramatic from 1952-67, not the powerglide…
It was cheaper that why GMH and Vauxhall changed from hydramatics in 65.
Interesting article on Powerglide. After the 1969 introduction of the Turbo 350, a Powerglide was almost a hidden option on the full-size Chevrolet — nobody wanted it. Turbo Hydra Matic became standard equipment on all V8-equipped full-size GM cars in April 1971.
If any trans deserves a DS it’s the Metric 200 and it’s use behind anything other than a Chevette 4 banger. I would have rather had a PowerGlide in my 80 Grand Prix than that metric lump of Horse manure!
I don’t know any PG-equipped cars, but the inherent engineering beauty of a CVT with fluid coupling is what attracts me to it. PG is not directly comparable to an auto-shifting box like the THM or newer autoboxes. In fact, PG has an infinite number of ratios. How’s that for number of gears snob-appeal? Just imagine, an electric-like smooth drive that nearly always keeps the engine in peak powerband, where it is the most efficient, over a wide speed range! The only limitation is that fluid-coupling only operates in a rev range that is (much) broader than the engine powerband, but narrower compared to average driving speed variations. They aren’t as effective at low or high speeds. I don’t know if this is a fundamental limitation or could be engineered out of, but GM surely kept trying (and incrementally succeeding) for decades, and produced reliable economy products while doing it. A Greatest Hit in my book.
Ummm; April 1 is over, CarCounter. “CVT with fluid coupling”; “PG is not directly comparable to…THM” What are you saying?
The PG isn’t that different from the THM at all; its torque converter might have had a slightly wider range, but not that much. All torque converters have a theoretical “infinite number of ratios” but only within their range of torque multiplication; which might be like 2.5 to 1.
Which means the PG very much couldn’t keep its engine in “the peak powerband” all the time. Ever driven or rode in one? The engine would spool up maybe 2.5 times compare to its actual mechanical ratio in first gear, but that was hardly enough to get the engine up to full power.
Essentially, the PG was like most early automatics, and its big appeal was the lack of manual shifting; that was the point of comparison. But when three-speed automatics came along, they allowed the engine to operate more efficiently in its best rev band, not racing or lugging like the PG (in the 35 – 60 mph range).
I’m not trying to diss the PG; it is what it was, but its big limitation was a lack of an intermediate gear. Me thinks you’ve swallowed some magic PG Kool-Aid.
Maybe CarCounter is thinking of the Super Turbine 400. That one acted a lot like a modern CVT does. A friend of mine had a 63 Riv with a boat cam and the ST400. Nice cruiser but doggy.
I always wondered what that car would have performed like with a “regular” T400 and a 2800 stall converter.
Heh heh. Kool Aid. Hic…
However, I’m talking about the idea behind the PG, a pure torque converter. It tries to keep the engine at max efficiency, by increasing the effective powerband (pb is from the rpm for max torque to the rpm for max power, as a rule of thumb) from the narrow engine-characteristic to a wider, more tractable range. As you point out, even that `wider’ range is not sufficient for low- and high- speed driving. As the need for speed increases, a narrow range fluid coupling requires a higher revving engine, as you correctly point out, but that is a *practical* limitation. The sheer engineering *beauty* of an extremely simple mechanism that adjusts the engine torque to fit the load is seducing to me. It may not work out in practice of course, but it is surely worth trying. No shifting, no vibes, no jerks, good mileage! The physics behind this is very simple and elegant, but the technical difficulties are forbidding. But GM tried, and I have to give them credit for it. Even today, if a reliable CVT can be made cheaply with a 105mph top end, a small peaky engine, and direct fluid coupling, it can save the petrol engine from the latest electric onslaught again. A formidable engineering and materials challenge, yes, but not much more difficult than designing the Wunder Batterien we’re all waiting for. I don’t expect GM to do it. Any company run by bean counters shouldn’t. But they did it in the past, and it takes guts.
I would like to see a comparison of the various generations of PowerGlide. I suspect the ideal rev band should’ve kept increasing as GM refined the design. If it didn’t increase, then, and only then, can accusation of obsolete technology or a Deadly Sin be made.
CarCounter: I’m confused by your comments; I think you’re mixing up terminologies and technologies.
First: a “fluid coupling” is not a torque converter. It might help to read up on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_coupling In short, a fluid coupling cannot increase torque, unlike a torque converter. That’s why early automatics that used fluid coupling, like the Hydramatic needed to have multiple gears (4 in the HM).
A torque converter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque_converter can increase torque (effectively the same as gear reduction), but most automotive TCs had an effective maximum range of 2.5:1. But the greater the torque multiplication, the greater the inefficiency.
What you’re describing (pure torque converter drive) is exactly what the Buick Dynaflow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynaflow transmission was: a wide-range TC, requiring no gears at all. But GM and Buck weren’t the only ones to try that; even the original Tucker was going to have just torque converter drive. The Dynaflow was very smooth, but very inefficient, and the resultant loss of power made the Buicks slower in acceleration. Folks complained, and eventually Buick moved away from that (long story made short).
The Powerglide wasn’t quite like the Dynaflow; it was just a convention (2.5:1) range TC and a two speed box; the fact that it started in Drive (top gear) just meant very leisurely acceleration. That’s why the Chevy brochure makes it clear: use Low for better acceleration and grades. The PG was not the same as a pure TC transmission.
In any case, torque convertors have significant losses, which is why modern transmissions use torque convertors with a narrower range, as well as locking up the convertor almost constantly.
The CVT transmission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmission provides what you’re describing, but there’s no need to team up a CVT with a torque converter; the CVT does that job already. And CVTs are very efficient, since they work mechanically, not by pumping fluid. They’re used in a wide range of cars, from little economy cars to powerful ones (Nissan Maxima). But they’re hardly a magic pill; they do what a regular automatic does, with a slight increase in efficiency.
Modern automatics are much more efficient than old ones, because the torque converter is locked most of the time, except at take off, and very briefly during shifts.
The Powerglide was simple, rugged, and reasonably efficient, but does not represent any particular advance, even at the time. Going back to wide-range torque converters is not going to happen; they are very inefficient, with way too much of heating of their fluid in order to do their job. Good idea in 1940 or 1950; no real relevance today.
ateupwithmotor has an excellent article about the early development of GM’s automatics here: http://ateupwithmotor.com/technology/246-hydramatic-history-part-1.html
Toyota’s first auto was the Aisin-Warner A10, which was basically the Powerglide built under license. Comparable Nissans were fitted with a version of the Fordomatic.
Nissans’ in the mid-late ’60s (Datsuns) with automatics had the “B-W” badge on the rear end. I remember as a kid around 1969 there was a Datusn TV commereical proudly proclaiming the automatic transmission as coming from “Munice, Indiana!”
The torque convertor on my VW AutoStick has “Borg-Warner” stamped on it.
Just bought a 38 Ford pick-up with a Chevy 355 and a 2 speed Powerglide, it is very difficult to put into 1st gear. Is this just a linkage adjustment normally?
Not being an expert, thats a definite probably. If you look at my comment above I have a problem I am sure is linkage. I can adjust the linkage to give me a park but I lose reverse. I can have a reverse but I lose park. I opted for a reverse bcause my parking brake is good. Think I will get around to putting an after market floor shifter (like lokar) on it.
I may be wrong about this but bushings on the linkage create a lot of “deadly sins”. I recall the stuff I had to go through when the ” three on the tree” manuals would mess up. If it happened frequently enough I would just put a floor shift in the car.
It could be something internal but these things have a reputation for being stone axe reliable.
Luck to ya.
Thanks for the reply, I will start there first, this is my 1st Powerglide, so it seems a little weird.
I’m another one of the boys from the 50′s. I have used & abused many a Power glide. My first “is”, not “was”, in my 52 Styleline Deluxe, witch is still ticking. Then there was my trusty 55, and the history gose on and on. I also recall an incident on I-5 when I accidentally slammed my 55 into reverse, (NO Damage Resulted). My only failior was when I tried to do a burn out. The only thing that caught fire was the Power glide, man did that stink. otherwise I’ve driven power glides off and on for 50 years without a problem.
—-Niftytwo,
Iv had a few Powerglids in my day and I can say they are indeed one tuff tranny. Had a ST-300 in a 67 firebird with a 326, just A glide with a pontiac bellhousing, I pound the hell outa that thing. No hell off the line, But from 30 to 60 it was a monster. Rolling starts were a hoot.Took on a guy I new with a 76 vette. Rolling start.He had nothing for me. From a dead stop he did, But side buy side goin down the road at 35 or 40 MPH I would run away on him, He wouldnt catch me any more, Not even top end. Same with a guy I knew that had a 74 firebird, We would allways play around and off the line, he was indeed faster but from a rolling start he didnt have a chance and again my top end was way more than him. I have a 65 Acadin with a 283 Glide. It wouldnt pull a hat off your head off the line, I raced a friend of mine with a 66 valiant, had a 225 slant 6 and a 904 3 speed trans. I would just squeek past him in the quarter. Pretty bad. 17:50s But from a rolling start, That glide would kill the 66 every time. That 65 acadian got 20 to 22 MPG. So the glide dose go if you use it right. I still have the 65 to this day and its a drag car now and still has the original Glide in it. Mind you it has a 4500 RPM stall converter in it and a 456 ring and pinion. Still has the 283 but vastly different. Car runs deep into the 11s. Not bad for a 283 glide car.It gose into high gear right at the end of the quater. I know a lot of guys that run glides in there race cars. The advantage they have is that they keep your motor in its power band for a longer period of time. Power band is nice and flat. I had a 327 in a vega years agoe. it to had a glide. Again it was no slouch.