(first posted 3/30/2012. Revised 6/11/2017) 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 durability. 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, which didn’t have a torque converter at all, but a fluid coupling, hence the need for four gears.The Hydramatic was efficient, but it was not very smooth. And although it was a brilliant breakthrough, GM’s engineering staff was also interested in exploring the alternative approach to automatics: torque converter.
A torque converter can be set up for a very wide range of effective “gear range”, and the appeal of the torque converter was that it didn’t require any “gears” at all; the necessary torque multiplication could all happen in the torque converter (“TC”). One needs to see these TC transmissions in a different light: not as an automatically-shifted gearbox, like the Hydramatic, but as a seamless way to transmit the engine’s power to the wheels. TC drive was being used extensively in military vehicles, buses, locomotives, and other heavy equipment due to the great attraction of eliminating the cumbersome mechanical drive and clutch. It made for a very smooth power delivery.
That was the appeal to GM as an alternative to the jerky Hydramatic. Buick bought into the concept first, with its Dynaflow, and Chevy soon followed. The Powerglide was very similar to the Dynaflow in design and execution. of course 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. But in 1950, traffic was invariably leisurely, and the PG’s smooth delivery was a very acceptable trade-off. It’s hard to overstate what a relief it was for many drivers to be able to give up the clutch and manual shift.
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 hard 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.But according to my calculations, a 1967 Corvette 427 with PG would not shift into high until about 90mph, or more.
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?
Related reading:
1967 Corvette 427 Tri-Power PG: The Ultimate (and Fastest) PG Equipped Car Ever
Two Speed Automatics vs. Three Speed Manuals: When 2=3, More or Less
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.
I can tell you that whenever a Ford 200 ci six is built to stock specs (at least the 65-70 ones) in every rear wheel dyno test I’ve seen, the 3-speed stick is 65 hp and the c4 auto is 58 hp. So in that configuration the c4 only used 7 hp over the 3.03 manual. In a 1970 Maverick the 200/auto does 0-60 in 14.5 and the stick does it in 12.3. Those are Motor Trend times. Also a 69 Falcon with 200/auto took 15.4 seconds to 60 simply because it was heavier.
To keep it simple, Paul, the general guideline for most newer vehicles is about 15% bhp losses through the drive train for manual, and around 20% for automatic.
I’m kinda surprised to see some of the older technology use up so much power, though. Definitely sheds some light on the engineering of transmissions.
Are the figures car craft posted for any and all engines?
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.
A website happened to bring up the Jetfire, and I mentioned the “liquid injection”–I wondered what happened if you didn’t keep it filled with the alcohol mixture.
Ah, “Turbo-Rocket Fluid”! They made it sound so high-tech. It was apparently a mixture of methanol and water with some rust inhibitors thrown in. I wonder if you can still get the stuff.
Probably not…though I suspect ordinary windshield washer fluid would work equally well.
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.
Stumbled onto this post. When I started rebuilding transmissions in the late ’70’s, 2-speed auto’s were just as common as 3-speeds. You can’t blame GM for using this as long as they did. First off the engineering costs were long since paid for, but what really made a difference along with reliability was they relatively speaking weigh next to nothing. The fact that the basic design is still one of the most commonly used automatics in professional and amateur drag racing is quite telling. They see upwards of 2-3000 HP and 6 second elapsed times! Modern 6 (and counting) speed automatics are really something from durability standpoints. They FAR outlast anything from the past. However they are VERY heavy and expensive to repair when the time comes. Front drives are not quite as durable as the truck RWD units are but even those are much more durable (largely due to two things: Computer feedback/control and almost leak free sealing technology).
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 a Sable (hold on I know that is an entirely different animal!) wagon which ate auto trannys UNTIL I discovered a rear brake caliper was hanging up. I suspect this triggered a longer term release of the lock up torque converter which overheated the trannys.
I remember trying to go up snow covered hill in my mother’s 1969 Caprice with a Powerglide transmission in drive and just spun the wheels. When I downshifted it to low, it went right up the hill with no problem! I was amazed!
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.
My 64 Pontiac Tempest still has the original and works like new. You only notice a FIRM shift if your foots on the floor. Normal driving and the shift is not that much different than my 2012 Cruze.
I believe you’re mistaking your Tempest’s Buick Super Turbine 300 2-speed for the PowerGlide. Amazing how many people think GTO’s and Tempests had PowerGlides.
For a ’64 Tempest, yes, the 2 speed trans was the Super Turbine 300. The 1961-63 Tempests with the rear transaxle had something called TempesTorque that was much closer to the Corvair PG.
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”
Powerglide remained available on big Chevys through 1972, though by then only on 6-cylinder Bel Air and Biscayne sedans; along with 6-cylinder Chevelles and Camaros. Final year for PG was 1973, when it was offered only on 4-cylinder Vegas and 6-cylinder Novas and Pontiac Venturas. For 1974, the PG was replaced in its former applications by the Turbo 300 and 350, which were followed by the infamous Turbo 200 for 1976. The Powerglide was also one of the first GM automatics to use the standardized shift pattern sequence: P-R-N-D-L, starting in 1958 – all other transmissions continued the much-criticized sequence pattern that placed Reverse at the end of the quadrant including Hydramatic’s P-N-D-S-L-R and Dynaflow’s P-N-D-L-R until those transmissions were superceded by the new Turbo-Hydramatic/Super Turbine 400 and Super Turbine 300 (the BOP 2-speed auto) in 1964 and 1965.
Why should they when the car buying public didn’t care.. clearly you don’t have extensive (or any) experience driving a 2 spd auto GM car of the mid to late 60s. They were perfectly satisfactory for the average driver who bought them.
> 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
In the early 1980’s I was a university student in Australia and a mate said he had just bought a car that had a V8 and would get to about 60 MPH in first gear and then snap your neck as it changed into second. I bet him $10 that this was not possible. We went to the carpark and there was a 1969 Holden Brougham, an evil car made by Holden to compete with the local version of the Ford Fairlane. The Brougham was a deeply cynical device – whereas the Fairlane had a longer wheelbase than the Falcon on which is was based, all of which made for greater rear seat legroom, the Brougham had…..a longer boot! It also had this horrible 2 speed auto. Yes, I lost the $10!
So I was wondering. Where are you currently at now? Are you still in Australia? I think that it would be so awesome to live there. I stay in the United States of America. I live in Indianapolis Indiana. I just wanted to say hi. And to hope that you will have a wonderful day today.
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?
Japanese trannies? I remember a three-speed in a mate’s girlfriend’s Datsun 1000. It lost second gear, and performed like a two-speed. He was mechanically-minded, so she gave it to him to tinker with. Wind-wind-wind-THUNK is pretty bad when you’ve only got one litre of sixties engine to start with!
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!)
Late correction: Powerglide went to the PRNDL pattern in 1958, not 1961. They switched because Turboglide was PRNDGR and there was concern about not confusing buyers.
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.
Quebecois? No problem then; even the Pope wouldn’t have been able to understand them! 🙂
Nor would anyone from Paris! Way?
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?
I gather you haven’t owned one built in the last two decades. My 2000 Acura and 2006 Taurus have both been dead reliable.
U never know when it will go off, may not b the trans, but something, these new car r just so complicated and then with RoHls, it prob will, but I hope not, for ur sake, a few do last, I keep hoping my 02 civic makes the run one more week, but it has 225k on the trans so I really can’t complain, but will it b worth rebuilding?
The folks and my 2008 Impalas have been really reliable and so far my 2013 has not even seen the inside of a shop with 33K miles discounting oil/tire rotation service. My 2008 2LT Impala 3900 went 112k miles without ever having a wrench turned in the engine bay and is now living across town with 130K and still going strong. My 2000 Impala 3800 and 2002 Intrigue went 171K and 169K miles without any problems other than wear items and the famous GM ISS which was no big deal at all to have replaced so I would say good cars in the last 20 years are not hard to come by.
I’m approaching have a number of 16-18 year old daily driver grade vehicles domestic and import that keep rolling along without drama or trouble. One is approaching 300K (original 5MT clutch), 155K GM AT, and 176K 5MT.
I sometimes think what is defective are people’s mechanics. I do all of my own work which isn’t frequent or major.
We used to call the newer, OBD-II cars(1996-up): 100,000-mile Throwaways
They design them to last just long enough, to make it through the lease, and then engineer them to be so expensive to repair, that you think it is cheaper to throw it away and lease a new vehicle instead.
I refuse to buy ANY model, built after 1995(and even then, some automakers had OBD-1.5 on them and should still be avoided). It gets only green antifreeze in it, as well.
Let’s take a look at some points, as well.
In 1996, GM emulated European automakers, with their “Extended Sludge” Death-Cool organic acid technology coolant, that east head gaskets like a fat kid eats cake.
In 2000, Ford and Chrysler did the exact same thing, and then THEIR vehicles began suffering more head gasket failures.
Since the trend of utilizing DOHC setups was becoming more popular(as the Japanese had been using OHC designs for many years over Detroit, with great success), this was a “win-win” for GM, Ford, and Chrysler(although with Chrysler is was really a gamble what would blow first: The Transmission or The Head Gasket).
They knew the coolant ate head gaskets, and the OHC setups that were becoming more common meant more expensive to repair a blown head gasket, since you had a more complex engine design.
This means that you typically junk the car for a new car, with a new warranty, and another 5 years of payments.
GM got sued for it, in 2008. Around 2005, GM secretly changed the materials used in their head gaskets.
Ironically, all you have to do is flush the cooling system out completely, and refill it with the old conventional green. And that can be done with any car. Both Orange and Green use ethylene glycol bases for the coolant. The only difference is the corrosion inhibitors. Green uses silicate-based inhibitors, to coat engine surfaces with a thin film to resist corrosion and the orange organic does not. The organic compound also reacts with oxygen(which the system ALWAYS has a small amount of air in the expansion tank), and that is what causes the sludging inside engine.
This is gibberish.
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!
FELIX: Having a baby is the most natural thing in the world
OSCAR: Felix, I thought driving a car with a stick shift was the most natural thing in the world…then when automatic transmissions came along, I converted
THE ODD COUPLE
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 think we tend to look at Powerglide from the wrong end of history.
Looking back from these days, yes, two speeds (or one speed with an ’emergency’ low) does seem primitive. But it must have been a revelation after having to wrestle a three-speed manual in ever-increasing heavy city traffic year after year.
But perhaps GM did keep using it for too long.
Just recently bought a 51 Chevy Styleline Deluxe Powerglide. I’ve been told multiple ways of driving this type of transmission. Some say just get in and drive and others say you have start off in Low and then after a few seconds shift into Drive. Once I come to a stop, I need to start the process again of starting in Low and then shift to Drive. Can anyone tell me the correct way?
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.
I don’t know – my mother drove a Citation past 140K miles without drama. Had the AT transmission too. Sister was learning to drive when she slipped it into reverse at 30 mph. No drama – engine just stalled and started right up again (with the key) in neutral still rolling. She thought she was signaling for a turn and grabbed the wrong steering column stalk.
It did have that Rubbermaid interior that was nearly indestructible though not pleasant in any way. I’ll never forget the fake leather stitching molded into the plastic (I think that was the car) and the sideways radio that was not aftermarket friendly. I always thought the five door hatch design was very useful though. These days a person has to buy a SUV/CUV to get that unless you are in Europe/Canada/Australia – well – anywhere but here.
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.
I don’t know how you’d get past the shifter interlock on a modern car. 😉
lol a friend of my father’s had a late 80s Chevy pickup and a 1979 Oldsmobile Delta 88 (the Oldsmobile was immaculate) and it was about 1993-94 before he was ready to purchase a new vehicle (and trade the Olds).
He went to look at Pontiac Bonnevilles and did eventually buy one in a fetching green with a tan interior but on the initial test drive he couldn’t figure out how to get the shifter out of park. The salesman had to explain shift interlock to him.
Happened to me on a Checker cab I was driving at 03:00 a.m. after filming a commercial for hours and hours (guy I worked for used to rent cars to the film industry) and obviously half asleep. After the drama I put it in “D” and drove back to the garage without noticing anything strange and that was that…
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.
“Also, nobody has yet pointed out that the original Powerglide concept of a 2-speed manually shifted slushbox was briefly resurrected ”
There was also the early HondaMatic of the late 1970s.
The Torgue-Drive was also available on 4 cylinder Novas but I’m sure few were made.
I remember a girlfriend’s Hondamatic in one of the first Accords. It seemed strange to me that she had to manually shift an ‘automatic’, but that engine never seemed to mind the lack of ratios.
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.
I believe that push starting capability requires a rear pump (don’t ask me) but I assume this means that spinning the driveshaft generates the fluid pressure that makes the clutches work. Most earlier automatics had this, but it was later eliminated by everyone. Not having real bumpers is part of it, but just jumping the battery will start anything startable. In the olden days with mechanical fuel pumps on the engine and no fuel injection, plus real big chrome bumpers, push starting might have been more effective than cranking. But in any case, unlike stick shift cars where a bunch of guys pushing or a slight downhill could do it, with automatics a fairly high and unsafe speed was necessary, like maybe 20 mph or more.
Yes Brian, I had a ’56 chevy stovebolt with PG, and like you said, could be push-started, great when the battery died or you wanted a silent get-away from a party you really didn’t want to go to as long as the car was pointed downhill, I don’t know why, but when coming to a stop, I liked to feel that ” thump ” when it dropped into low gear. I put 50k on it after I got it from my dad, never spent a penny on it.
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.
I remember reading the road tests at the time – you had to ‘read between the lines’ to pick up the transmission difference and what they thought of it. Seemed a strange step to take the same year as Ford brought out a three-speed auto in the Falcon.
My cousin had an HK Kingswood with the 186 and Powerglide; around town it worked just fine and you would never have noticed the lack of a ratio. I don’t recall how it performed on the country roads around Warragul where we went blackberrying, but then I don’t remember him passing anything either.
It’s telling that Holden replaced it with an in-house three-speed unit for the next model, and advertised it as such an improvement.
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.
Like MarcKyle64, I had the experience of a PG/327 2bbl 210 hp in a Camaro…a 1967.
In our neighborhood in San Francisco, we very frequently drove on a through street with no stop signs on the side streets. Every intersection demanded that we slow down to around 10mph and check for cross traffic before proceeding. Every intersection brought with it a harsh downshift when resuming speed. Lurch, WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! BANG!
After less than 40,000 miles the clutch plates had burned and the Powerglide needed to be rebuilt. Lurch, WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Slippppppp…! This happened with transmission fluid and filter service every 12,000 miles to try and stave off the inevitable. A new vacuum modulator did nothing but we had tried two of them anyway.
It should be noted that when Powerglide was first “reprogrammed” (a 21st Century word for something that was done in the 1950s), upshifts were automatic but downshifts almost never happened except at very low speeds or if forced by a full throttle application. Part-throttle automatic downshifts were unknown. In the case of that 1967 Camaro, however, I’d would rather it HADN’T downshifted at those intersections. Lurch, WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! BANG!
Powerglide, Dynaflow, Ultramatic, Hydrive, and the Warner and Ford three speed automatics that started in second-all bad when you live in a city with lots of hills.
Hi there…
My name is Theodore and I am sending this email from Greece
I own a 99 Mercedes 4 cylinder turboed about 700 hp and I want to change my manual gearbox to an automatic…
I was going to use a 7g tronic from a c63 but it need to many electric work to be done and my electrician is not in a mood…
I was wondering if I can use a powerglide transmition for everyday use… Some street race …. Some drag…. And some long trips….???
I will be really glad if u answer
Yes, the ‘Glide will work behind almost any motor that makes over 200HP. The turbo Mercedes is a perfect “glide” set-up as it will spool up the turbo well and run pretty hard.
I have a warmed over Big Block Chevy in a lightened 1970 A-Body with 3.73 Posi rear, 3,500 stall. Foot break at the track and on the street. Don’t want to hit the tires too hard or it spins – glide is perfect. Nice leave, good torque multiplication, low parasitic losses, easy to spin and bullet-proof. What’s not to like?
Want mileage, get a turbo 4 banger with a 5-speed stick. Wanna have fun – get a big motor and Glide 🙂
HT 4100. 5.7 diesel. 1980 X body. Cimarron. Those are a good definition of deadly sin. Calling the PG a deadly sin is not accurate. Outstayed it’s welcome yes but DS no way!
Thank god they didn’t use the PG in the HT4100 Fleetwoods. Which would have tore up first the motor or the tranny? Im guessing the motor! But it would make a slow combo with what those cars were weighing. Maybe PG would work in the 8.2L big caddy motor with its 2.28 in the rear:)
Should work okay, but PG was over by then. I’m guessing the ‘driving experience’ wouldn’t have gone down well with Cadillac’s target market though.
No one has mentioned that a two-speed automatic was just fine for early 50’s Chevys because back then Chevrolet was a conservative (but well-detailed) car for conservative buyers. Few Chevy owners cared about 0-60 times, so the Powerglide behind a six with ample low end torque served them just fine. GM customers who wanted peppy acceleration could buy “Rocket 88s”.
Of course, the world turned upside down with the arrival of Ed Cole’s great small-block V8.
Just recently bought a 51 Chevy Styleline Deluxe Powerglide. I’ve been told multiple ways of driving this type of transmission. Some say just get in and drive and others say you have start off in Low and then after a few seconds shift into Drive. Once I come to a stop, I need to start the process again of starting in Low and then shift to Drive. Can anyone tell me the correct way?
Follow the original instructions: for normal driving, put it in D and leave it there. Low is for starting on steep hills, or for engine braking on steep downgrades.
Yes, you can engage Low on a start and then upshift. But it’s not recommended to be done regularly or often, as it increases wear. It was not designed to be used that way.
Obviously you’re not going to get jack-rabbit starts in D. But presumably that’s not your objective. This is a car for gentle cruising, and D is the way to go. It will reduce wear and tear, and makes for more relaxed driving. That’s how it was recommended by Chevrolet, and how folks did it back then.
I have a completely original 1962 Impala Convertible. It had been sitting in a garage since 1984, it came out of its hibernation and has given me hundreds of miles of leaky fun.
283/cast iron PowerGlide. These are the original factory set-up and hum beautifully together smoothly. Problem I’m having is the PG is leaking like crazy and it’s time to have it fixed, re-built, sealed or replaced.
I pose to you all, should I replace it with the aluminum one ( which impala guys here say is a better unit), re-build my original cast iron one or the other advised move put in a turbo 350?
I’m tempted to keep the car intact and simply re-build the cast iron. If I did switch to the 3 speed I would keep the original around for possible re-sale.
As for the aluminum one I’m not certain what the big difference is. Sounds like it was simply made for the lighter Corvair and essentially the same unit..
Any advice or suggestions..?
I have the same setup in a 57. I did rebuild the cast iron PG and am a little bit sorry that I did. When I went looking for deep pans to increase the volume of fluid and a floor shifter to replace some bad linkage it was no go.
I have also spent quite a bit of commuter time running a TH350 through the gears and can think of nothing to recommend any PG over the 350. I was told it was “slap in” simple including the driveshaft but cannot swear to that.
They are both lightweight and tough IMO and will hold up to anything a 283 (up to 350) can dish out in stock trim. You can modify the 350 easier than a PG with such things as deep finned sumps as the parts are available. Had a friend with a junkyard. He said the TH400 was about the toughest auto available in a chev. Eats a little power though, I think, nor is it a “slap in” but I’m talking above my head with that.
I have just started on my 57 again. Good luck to you.
If you’re really going to switch it and plan to drive it any meaningful amounts, consider skipping the THM350 and going with the THM700R, to get that fourth speed overdrive to make highway cruising much nicer.
Here’s one CC reader who did that to his ’64 Impala: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-kids-gary-duludes-1964-impalas-then-and-now/
But if you’re not going to drive it much, it would probably be easiest to just fix or swap the PG.
I’ve had two pg cars. The 53 Chevy was very slow (the joke was 0 to 60 in 12 days). My 66 Tempest was 326 two barrel that actually felt pretty quick. Don’t know if that is a testament to 326 or the pgs improvements by 66. I do know it was fun to chirp rubber at freeway speeds when that pg finally shifted coming off the on ramp. People thought I was packin more horses than I was.
I had a powerglide in my ’63 Biscayne, ’65 Impala & ’69 Impala and loved everyone of them. They were all very reliable and had a great powerband, the 250 HP 327 and 255 HP 350 in the ’65 & ’69 seemed to have a great power band with a 3:08 rear axle and powerglide.
Need some help on my powerglide have a 63 Impala 283 with a powerglide. When I’m driving it and im slowing down it downshifts really hard . Can anybody help or give a direction what to check or do ??? Thank you in advance
Check the vacuum modulator, which controls shift firmness. Either the modulator itself has failed (like anything vacuum-opersted, it has a rubber diaphragm that can crack and leak) or the vacuum line between modulator and engine has gone. Usually that line is steel wtith two rubber-hose couplings.
Newer pre-electronically-controlled transmission designs modulate shifts by a cable or linkage from the throttle.
While I like the option of an automatic transmission, why two gear ratios? Didn’t some cars of the time have automatics with three gear ratios?
Not so much back then. Some did, like the Fordomatic, but it started in second gear unless Low was selected. Don’t forget that the torque converter in an automatic functions like one or more gears, so the effective range of gear multiplication is much greater than it might sound. Which is why there were also one-speed automatics, like the Dynaflow.
I’ve heard of the Dynaflow. I didn’t know it only had one gear ratio. My grandparents drove Buicks in the 1950s and 60s.
My 1962 Impala ss with 327/250 rocks its power-slide! Seriously, it works well! keith
That proves my point about not having the 4bbl upgrade on my 327. Some engine/powertrain combinations just don’t work well.
I took my driving lessons in 68 with the Auto Club on a Bel Air with a six and a powerglide. What a slug. Then when I went for my drivers test the first time they gave me a V8 Falcon with a 3 speed automatic. The examiner was not impressed when I left a patch when leaving the DMV lot. When I retested a month later they gave me theBel Air and I passed OK.
My grandfather drove his 64 Parisienne until about 1990 with a 283 and a powerglide until he gave up his license at age 90. That thing was slow and thirsty.
Do you not bring your own vehicle for your test in America? My daughter did her test in her great-aunt’s old Suzuki Swift with the optional back seat – must’ve been a sight getting the instructor AND an examiner in there!
The closest to a PG was my mom’s father’s 1969 Cutlass (about as stock as it gets) and dad’s 1969 Cutlass Supreme (did not have a nameplate, but the rims suggested it–it was not a 442). Having learned to drive on mom’s 1965 Dodge Dart with the indestructable /6 and the Torqueflite, it just didn’t make much sense to me about that missing intermediate gear. But neither were particularly interested in performance, but that it got them from point A to B without blowing up. I drove pop’s car and I thought it just lumbered along, and had a very heavy understeer. My grandmother’s 1969 Olds 98 with the Rocket 455 and TH-400 was a lot more fun to drive–only issue I remember about it was a stuck valve that clacked. For her car, it was just checking the transmission fluid every so often to top it off. Pop treated his car that only Dean Moriarty would approve and kept it for 9 years. After my brother trashed the Dart in 1979, mom got a 1978 Chevette with I’m sure was the pathetic 1.4 L and the contemptable THM-180 which leaked transmission fluid and slipped on any turn, particularly right 90 turns with any real speed. Most cars I’ve owned were manual, and I like it that way. No one in my family has ever gotten a GM product again.
Like many above, I am on the side that the PS was a GM greatest hit–American ingenuity and durability at its finest, but they kept it in play long past its sell-by date. The DS was not in the transmission, but GM’s inability / arrogance / incompetence to develop a worthy successor in a timely fashion. Henry Ford held onto the Model T a little too long, but at least when he finally saw the handwriting, he (and his son) introduced the Model A, which was a total success. But meanwhile on the 14th floor …
When you sell half the new cars in the USA, you forget about improvements and basic competency.
“What’s good for General Motors is good for the country” was something else that was well past its sell-by date.
No one’s mentioned the use of a Powerglide in a Jeep? I own a 1969 Jeep DJ5a which came from the factory with the Chevy 153 inline-4 and…. a Powerglide 2-speed. I have mine at the shop right now getting a swap as my the Powerglide that came with it when I bought it last year stopped shifting into any gear (reverse included). So a 1967 PG from a Corvair is going in. I will say this, with a 3.73 rear end this thing isn’t fast at all. I don’t think I’ve had it above 50-55 so far (although I don’t think I want it to go any faster. This Jeep is super scary at high speeds.) The motor isn’t quite as powerful as some of the 6’s and V8’s I hear everyone else had mated up to their PG, so I think they geared it steep in the rear end to compensate. For toolin’ around town it’s a great setup, but I generally avoid the highway since it doesn’t go all that fast.
I had a 1969 Nova with 307 2 bbl engine, and a Powerglide. It was the worst transmission I ever owned. There was no punch off the line. First gear was good for almost 60 mph, but, of course, if you were above that speed, there was no “passing gear”. The transmission slipped like crazy on the 1-2 shift, too. The 2-1 downshift was jerky, as might be expected, given the large RPM rise. They had a weird whine to them. I worked in a repair shop in the early 70’s, and Powerglides were no better in the customer’s cars. Even this so called durability is a stretch. The bands had to be adjusted and replaced. I think people remember only the good over time. The only good thing I can say, is GM made a lot of money putting such a cheap transmission in their cars, and people bought them.
A friend of mine who is driving a special made offroad car in a motorsport called “Formula Offroad” is using PG and is doing about 100 mile (yes 160 km) in first gear. He is using 355 Chevy small block.
O yes he is mostly just using the first gear all the time, with stall speed between 4000-5000 rpm.
The Power Glide is a nice piece and much shorter then any other GM auto tranny I do know of. It was used in some 1/4 mile cars many years ago and did deliver some fun, but today we have some more chooses then before.
A bang for the buck ….. in my way of opinion.
Do you have to pull the engine to work on a 1963 Chevy corvette power glide transmission?
I could never figure why a Corvette would be saddled with a PG. Every Corvette I have ever driven has had a 4sp, I would hate to think what a PG would do to it having driven PG equipped cars, the first being a ’50 Chevrolet. Never owned one, just ridden in and have driven many PG cars over the years. And in all the discussion about auto transmissions nobody has mentioned the 3 spd BW O-Matics. Ford and also it’s UK and Australia divisions, Mercury, Studebaker, AMC, Jeep, BMC, Citroën, Datsun, MG, Jaguar, Rover, Saab, Triumph & Volvo all used this transmission in it’s various versions. I don’t think any other automatic transmission has been used in so many different brands of cars. The Rambler version which I drove for over 15 years in various Ramblers was the most versatile. 1st and 2nd gear start, the second gear start was probably the nearest to a PG that you get, it would shift to 3rd under full throttle about 60-65 with the V8, the 6 about 10mph less. I beat the heck out of them and never had one fail, The one transmission I had fail was a TorqueFlite, although it was a 6 cyl one with no cooler.
You can even add the Alvis 3-litre, the Reliant Scimitar V6, the Fiat 130 and the Lagonda Rapide (and probably more) to that list. You can’t fight the Borg.
Another relatively successful 3-speed auto box was the ZF 3HP12, as used by BMW, Peugeot, Alfa Romeo, etc.
No, but you have to drop the exhaust system.
Don’t knock the powerglide. In its time and day it was an excellent tranny. Today’s 6plus speed automatic transmissions drive me crazy with their constant hunting for gears. If I had an old Chevy with a ‘glide I would probably swap it out for Turbo350, I think that a 3 speed auto or maybe a 3 speed auto with AOD to be the best. Back in the day an engine with a wide power band did not need that many gears. The beauty of the powerglide was that it was a reliable fully automatic transmission you could get instead of a three on the tree stick. Yes by the early to late sixties there were better transmissions out there, for example the Chrysler Torqueflight. Today I have 700R4 in my half ton 2wd Suburban with a Goodwrench 350, headers, Weiand 144 supercharger, 750 cents Edelbrock carb and a water/methanol injection system. I love it, definitely a sleeper. Full exhaust keeps it quiet. Not sense CFM
A definite win for the transmission that brought totally shiftless transmissions to the masses who simply could not get the hang of driving even a synchromesh manual transmission. And Chevy was first in the low-priced field.
Yes, you could get a Hydra-Matic in a Pontiac. But the price spread between Chevy and Pontiac, which seems microscopic today, was a giant hurdle for the typical Chevy buyer back then. For them, a straight 6 and a Powerglide was perfectly adequate to get to work, to school, to market, and to church without breaking the bank.
By the way, if you’re restoring a Pontiac built late in the ’53 model year and find that it has a Powerglide, it’s probably supposed to be there. The fire that destroyed the one Hydra-Matic plant in August of that year forced Pontiac to temporarily use Powerglides.
And Cadillac and Oldsmobile to use Dynaflows.?
As to the shift to high, 60 is very conservative; holding the selector in low allowed a lot more. My best bud in HS was given a cool ’57 Bel Air hardtop with a 283 4bbl [220 HP as I recall] and powerglide (by his doting father, who really couldn’t afford it). Since he had no $ in the game, he abused that thing terribly. We used to take it to the drag strip, where he would torque it up against the brakes to leave the line and then hold it in low to 80 mph.
Unfortunately, he managed to blow 3 engines and 5 powerglides in a couple of years’ time (or was it 5 engines & 3 powerglides–can’t recall that far back)
Why did GM use the PG so long?
I was in training at GM tech in 1973 @ Flint MI
We had many Instructors, but one was an engineer with a personality.He said if you don’t understand why GM did something, to think of $.
He said GM kept the PG because they did not want to pay a $1license fee ,
to use the technology of the Torque Flite to Chrysler.
The finally realized,after many costly failures, that they could not make a 3 speed automatic that would last & perform. hus the THM 400, which I believe is the toughest AM ever made
Also, consider the learning curve (aka experience curve). Chevy built the same transmission for so many million times that they must have been superb at building it. Cost per unit must have been rock bottom. Take that cost factor with the fact there were very, very few warranty claims and is is easy to see why they stuck with it.
But you cant deny what it started in the drag racing community. Every high performance transmission manufacture had a 2 speed powerglide that they sold. Most of them manufacture their own version of the glide now and is still very popular today. It may have been outdated when the other 3 speeds started to show up but 50 years later it still dominates the lower classes in drag racing. That’s impressive in my book!
Paul, we were discussing the Packard Ultramatic when we were looking at the Hydramatics in the museum in Ypsilanti.
This is the video I was referring to: a 56 Studebaker Golden Hawk with the Packard 352 and Twin Ultramatic. Around the 3:10 mark, the car makes an acceleration run starting in low. The trans upshifts to high around 2000rpm and the tach drops to 1500. A moment later, the torque converter locks up and the tach drops from 1500 to 1000.
Steve, I thought we were talking about the Chrysler Ultradrive 4 speed transaxle. Remember I kept telling you about our ’92 Dodge Caravan, and how I observed its shift points. We didn’t own a Packard!! (I wish).
Yes, if I’d gotten that you were talking about Packard’s Ultramatic, I would have agreed with you too!
1971, ’72, ’73? Wow. Super-lame, considering Chrysler dropped even optional availability of their 2-speed Powerflite after 1961, since when every automatic vehicle they built came with the superlative 3-speed Torqueflite (which had been available and popular since 1956).
It’s been mentioned in the comments in passing, but the 2-speed Toyoglide was an interesting PG clone, made by Aisin-Warner (a JV between Aisin Seiki and Borg Warner) in the ’60s and ’70s. You could get a Toyoglide on anything from the 700cc twin-cylinder Publica (imagine that!) to the V8-powered Century. Not sure when they stopped production — the switch to the 3-speed Toyoglide, which was introduced in 1970, must have taken a few model years.
The two-speed Toyoglide was available well into the ’70s in Japan, although it assumed the same kind of status Powerglide did at GM in the late ’60s, limited to the smallest engines in the cheaper grades.
Greatest Hit or Deadly Sin? It was a hit (though maybe not greatest), it just over stayed its welcome by about five to seven years.
Not a DS. GM did keep it going for too long, that I agree. You could say the same of the Ford flathead V8. A big seller, yet kept in production well past its best by date.
How about a DS/ Greatest Hits on that subject?
The illustrations with this post brought back a lot of memories. My first car back in 1964 was a ’51 Chevy with a Powerglide. Change the grille and side trim and that’s my car. It ran great ( recent Jasper engine) and drove good. Heck, I was just glad to have my own car. The Powerglide on that particular car was it’s shortcoming, however. After about 8 months of ownership it started making a noise above 50 mph. The transmission shop said it was a bearing. So, I kept it from over 50 which I am sure my parents approved. The thing was, I was quite aware my car wasn’t a high performance car and did not run it hard like a lot of my friends did. I considered converting it to a 3 speed until my Dad talked me out of it. After a few months of the noise we traded it in on a V8, auto. ’55 Ford. I did run that one a lot harder.
My wife owned a ’64 Chevy with a six and Powerglide and I have to say it performed a lot better. However, I have never liked Powerglides, or ” Two in the glue” as we used to call them, but, then, I prefer to shift for myself and have never bought a new car or truck with an automatic.
The Powerglide certainly was very important in GM’s history. It allowed Chevrolet to offer a cheap and relatively durable automatic to the low priced crowd. And as time went on there were improvements made to the transmission that did update it. However, it was definitely kept on the market for far too long.
For many years GM held out on paying the royalty’s on the Simpson gear set, but by 1964 they gave in and create the TH400. Why did it take until 1969 for GM to develop a light duty three speed auto with the Simpson gear set? Ford was late to the game with the Simpson geared transmission too, However, it did develop the light duty C4 before the heavy duty C6. GM really had no excuse. This to me was GM’s cost cutting starting to rear its head, as there was no other reason that the PG should have existed post ’64. GM knew that it could rest on its laurels and that people would continue to buy Chevrolets with PG’s, regardless of the fact that they were antiquated compared to the competition.
Speaking of the Simpson gearset, there seems to be a lot of misinformation on this thread. Howard Simpson invented the Simpson planetary gear set, not Chrysler. Ford was the first to licence the gear set but didn’t use it until the C4. Chrysler licenced it after Ford but was the first to bring it to market. The TH400 was the first GM transmission to use it, after GM finally gave in and paid the piper. GM and Ford did not reverse engineer or copy the Torquefilght, rather they all used the same concept by using the Simpson planetary gear set. In the end though the Simpson gear set has since become antiquated and many transmissions now use the Ravigneaux gear sets. Ford for example, went back to the Ravigneaux gear set. The older FMX used the Ravigneaux gear set and Ford went back to this for the 1980 AOD.
The limitation of the Simpson gearset is that the range of ratios you can get out of it is pretty constrained and narrowly spaced. If you want a passing gear in the range of 1.5:1, low is going to be no more than about 2.5:1. For big V-8s, that’s not necessarily bad, because the torque converter gives you at least 2:1 at stall and a starting ratio of 5:1 or better. For smog-controlled sixes and small V-8s, it was helpful to have a deeper low gear, which you can do with Ravigneaux gearsets. A Ford 4R70W, for instance, has a 2.84:1 low with 1.55:1 second, which isn’t possible with a Simpson gearset.
You were probably the only one in this thread who actually knew any of that information I posted above about the Simpson gearset. I think one of the main advantages of the Ravigneaux gearset is since it shares the same ring gear between the two planetary sets, it is more compact than a Simspson set (which shares a sun gear but has separate ring gears)
As fo the gear ratios, don’t forget the GM TH200-4R, which used a Simpson gearset, had basically the same ratio spead as an 4R70W. It was 2.74, 1.57, 1.0, and 0.67. And of course the TH200 3-speed used the same three ratios as the TH200-4R.
The said, the AOD/AODE didn’t have the wide spread, with a 2.40 first gear and 1.47 second gear. The big advantage Ford had with the AOD by going back to the Ravigneaux gearset was that they could use one gearset to make the four speeds. While the TH200-4R needed to add an extra gear set to add the overdrive.
Having driving both the PG and TH-350 in the same car, a 1966 Impala with 283-4bbl. I bought it from my Grandma, who bought it new. She really wanted the 427/425hp but got talked out of it. Anyway, I liked having that extra gear as a teenager. Looking back, I would have just kept the PG, seeing how efficient it was, and just put some monster gearing in the rear end since I used it for just driving around the city and drag racing at the strip. I miss that car and Grandma! 🙂
Was it the Powerglide where reverse gear had the same ratio as low, meaning the car could reach insane speeds in reverse?
The only automatic transmission that will roll off like a manual pull down in low gear and would start up
Not the only one. Any transmission with a rear oil pump could be push/roll started and most were into the early 1960s. This list from 1959 was pretty extensive. https://blog.consumerguide.com/historically-helpful-how-to-push-start-your-car/
All the foregoing in the Pop Sci article is perfectly true, but it really depends on the car and engine. My ’69 Cutlass has a 350 2bbl Rocket and Olds JetAway, which is actually a Buick Super Turbine 300 2 spd auto similar to PG but not identical (few or no parts interchange). In 95% of driving conditions you really don’t notice any difference, the Olds 350 has plenty of torque and will wind up too. I suppose if one did a lot of high speed highway driving and passing it’d matter more, but for the general driving public even in the late ’60s, who purchased an intermediate, not full-size, Olds at least, it was entirely satisfactory. I’d wager that most were completely unaware of what transmission they had, nor would they have cared if they were.
When I first got it I thought as the article writer did and was initially convinced I’d want to swap the 2 spd for a TH350, but after considerable driving have decided not to do so, but to keep it original. It’s durable, low maintenance and the car’s overall performance is fine for my purposes, as it was no doubt for those who bought them new in 1969. In 1970 a THM350 was the only choice for Olds V8 buyers in any event.
I like my ’59 Chevy w/ a 6 & Powerglide. This may be one of the most unobtrusive powertrains of its era. Between the smooth and quiet 6 w/ hydraulic lifters, (well-insulated, and with a correct NOS muffler) and the smoothness of Powerglide with just one upshift that you hardly notice–combined with the soft but steady 4-coil suspension (refined for ’59), it’s quite a cruiser! You hardly hear or feel the engine/transmission most of the time! Inspiration for the advertising slogan “Jet-Smooth Ride”.
No, this is not a performance car, but I say if you want to go fast, get a modern car (with modern precise handling & safety features).
As a kid, our next-door neighbor had a ’62 Bel Air wagon with a 6/PG. It made an eerie sounding “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah” when in park. My ’59 does that too!
BTW, if 2 speeds were so bad, why did Ford come out with a new Fordomatic in ’59 with just 2 speeds? My mother’s 62 Comet had that one. Again, not a performance car, but I think it did OK. It drove 130,000 miles with no transmission trouble at all.
Even considering all the Powerglide’s shortcomings in this modern era of auto technology, if given a choice today in automatic transmissions between a CVT or a Powerglide I’d choose the Powerglide.
A 1971 full-size Chevrolet with a six and a Powerglide in taxi service? I did that too.
It had four wheel drum brakes, and every time you stepped on the brakes, it would change lanes. To the left. I told the owner to fix the brakes, because I wouldn’t drive it. He took it for a test drive, and sent it to the scrapyard…er..auto recycler. Hmmmm.
I kept scrolling through the multitudes of comments, nothing mentioned about the early Hydramatic. Here goes. In defense of the jerky hydramatic, while yes there were some that were really jerky, those weren’t adjusted correctly or had damage. I’ve drove a variety of early Hydramatics, mostly the Dual Range, and in proper condition they are very smooth. I’ve drove Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Kaiser’s and Lincoln. I think the Lincoln was the nicest one. While the shifts were noticeable, there wasn’t any “jerk”, just a smooth shift to the next gear.