Technical Two pedals or three

I can tell you from experience that all the fun goes away fast when your daily driver is a six cylinder, non synchro 3 speed column shift and you drive 50 miles a day in S.F. Bay Area stop and go commute traffic. drove my 61 Dodge for a couple years as my only running car back when I was young and adventurous.
my next 2 cars were 4 speed and 5 speed. much better. finally in my old age my regular car is an automatic.

 

The "happiness" never stops....

 

I wanted to go manual in my Durant, but prices around here are stupid. A factory T5 runs $1200 Canadian, most are more and still need rebuilds

 

I had an off topic G20 van, I used an M-22 Muncie with forward gears hooked to the column. Reverse I stuck little lever under the seat.
The gears set was not handy with a heavy load.
Parking in town was hectic with the dive back and forth, to go back and forth.
But empty, on the Boulevard, with the 370 rear it shined light to light
The junkyard find for a 4 speed column shift linkage, would be a '60s Mercedes

 

3

 

member: 51"]3[/QUOTE]

 

I used 1-4 on the column.

For reverse, I'd put the column in neutral, and push in the Throttle knob that was connected to a 4' shift cable that ran out the firewall through the stock Throttle hole and down to a cable stop on the top of the transmission and connected to the Reverse lever. When it was parked, I always left it in reverse so if anyone looked in the car, they just saw stock knobs in their correct position.

 

@Tow Truck Tom and @bchrismer loving the four on the tree idea, definitely against the grain. I suppose you guys had threes on the floor also he he ha ha.
Was there any factory 3 on the floor cars, never saw one. Tow Truck Tom I’ll bet that van surprised a few people.
Dan

 

first that comes to mind was our 67 mustang--prob plenty of others.but that popped first....

 

Thanks, I remember 3 on floors but the one I remember were converted from column.
Dan

 

My '64 GTO had a non synchro 3 speed with the factory floor shift.

 

I guess I forgot about all the older cars 1930s etc with 3 on floor, maybe I saw some newer 1950s 60s cars with factory 3 on the floor but just don’t remember them.
Dan

 

Ford never installed column shift in any Mustang (or Cougars that were Mustang-based) regardless of engine or transmission choice. The 'base' three-speed cars are rare, but I've seen more than a few.

Some early GTOs and 442s ('65-68 ?) if ordered with the base three-speed got the Ford full-syncro toploader trans with a floor shift. I've heard rumors this was also true on the Buick GS cars, but I've never seen one.

The 'four on the column' conversions I've seen have nearly been all Fords as they had arguably the best column linkage of most '50s/early 60s cars (all steel construction, no die-cast bits). If you had an overdrive car, the OD cable could be re-tasked to operate reverse. If I'm not mistaken, that's what Jeff Norwell did on one of his '57s.

 

it does not matter.the main thing is that it goes down the road.

 

And it makes you happy !

 

When I did the swap I asked a work buddy to take a ride without saying why.
He wasn't paying attention at the one-two shift, he couldn't imagine what was happening,
when we passed 35mph with the lever at the bottom.
2:20 1st & 3:70 rear, was balky when full of freight (paper and fabric)
As I said earlier when empty, on 'The Boulevard' I stunned a few hot shots.

Factory 3 on the floor came with a '61 Dodge Lancer behind the slant six engine.
I picked one up for a song. It became a group possession. If / when any one of my greaser buddies needed wheels it went on long term loan several times.
In its earlier life the rear diff had run dry. It stayed together, but sang to you all day long and into the night. My ex-soon to be 1st wife, tried to climb into the trunk of a '55 Chevy one night.

I became the second owner of a '64 F-85 convert. 4 bbl, 10 and a 1/4 comp, 330 cube
It was some special optioned model I can't recall the model.
The suspension was heavy duty.
The non-power steering had a quick-ratio box.
Three speed first gear was non-synchro, with factory floor stick.
Got it replaced with Hurst Synchro-loc.
When I handed it over to the new owner both the rear and trans had been grenaded and up-graded.

 

I’ll roll the dice and go with Two
Dan

 

I built the Model A in my avatar with 3 pedals. The older I get it may get an automatic one day!

 

Slow, low down cruisers, kustoms, and big barges: 2 pedals.
Semi-fast cars, pickup trucks: 3 pedals.
Really fast cars: 2 pedals.

 

Daily Driver two pedals, weekender three pedals. I will have two in my Henry J.