Ok, so this is a little weird but i thought i would inquire. I was talking to my grandma a while back, and she mentioned that she had a Peugot (sp?) in the 70's that had a push button transmition. I hadnt ever seen this before, and was wondering if anyone here had seen one on a different car or new exactly how it worked. She said it was clutched, but shes really old so i cant vouch for her memory. It was a 3speed..anyone seen something else like this ?
Dodge/valiant/plymouth/chrysler did it in their late 50's and early 60's cars. That's all I can tell you.
I can say that I would love a big block 727 pushbutton fot my ride. a great cleam look for a custom, and they are bullitproof
any good links on how they work? i mean i get how a normal shift linkage on a 4/5/6 speed works, and how an auto works, but i dont see how the push button would do it....or is it one of those hitngs im better off just not getting into, and just let it work
my step dad ran a bunch of chrysler products with push button shift what i remember was that there was a cable or pair of cables that either pushed or pulled on the trany linkage.what i remember most was when he swapped engine and trans in a 62 valient and spent several days with a chilton manual trying to adjust those cables he finaly gave up and relettered the shift buttons !Edsel had the pushbutton shift in the center of the steering wheel I can just imagine what a mess that linkage was!
we shortened one of those cables once. pta to get it adjusted. the cable end only moves millimeters, where it attachs to the tranny. but it worked very well after that riverrat
I had a 63 Dodge Polara ragtop in high school. Had a pushbutton on the dash. 383 motor. One of the funnest cars I've ever owned. Ugly as hell, but bangin those buttons on the dash was a rush. Chicks loved it, too. Just a mess of cables to the tranny. To put it in park there was a lever beneath the buttons that you would slide from right to left. Thanks for bringing up some good memories. If you can find a Mopar unit, use it. I haven't seen anyone put one in a rod lately. Lotta fun, too.
Just to add a little to the comments...I run the Iron push button trans in a couple of my cars all with Early Hemi's in front of them - so they are definitely "up to the task" for hot rod duty. The only real downside I see for running the Iron ones is that there's pretty much no speed stuff for them so if you REALLY want to run a smokin' hot trans you're better off running the later aluminum one (727) versus the earlier Iron Torqueflite. AS far as actually making one work - there's only TWO cables on mine and you only really need ONE since the other one just activates the built in parking brake (drum brake on end of trans). There's a single cable that activates the gear selection - no actual "PARK" in a early pushbutton trans - just NEUTRAL. So you had BETTER make sure your parking brake works REAL GOOD!!! because if you don't you just might watch your car roll away!!! I run a pushbutton trans in my Rambler and I "hid" it in radio - it's always funny when someone realizes there's no shifter in the car - sometimes they go nuts trying to figure it out. I also have one in my '34 Plymouth coupe as well as my '47 Ford truck - so you can see I am pretty much hooked on them. They also allow you to push start your car like a stick car.
You will find, as you learn more about cars, that there were more weird transmissions and transmission controls than you can shake a stick at. Automatics, Semi-Automatics, stick-shift (manual), with all sorts of ways to actuate the clutch. My current Citroën 2CV has a lever, looks like an umbrella handle, that sticks out of the firewall. I push, pull and twist it to shift gears. Some models of the same car have a centrifugal clutch, so no third pedal. Other Cits had a 'normal' patterned three speed, save the lever was on the dash. Some had a lever on the column, that was moved from side to side to shift, the clutch being hydraulically operated by a control that read engine load and throttle position. Some have a normal ZF auto, save the 'D' position is labeled 'A' (Avant = forward: it's a French thing...). Note: all French sticks have neutral labled 'PM', "point mort" or "dead spot". American manufacturers were also quite inventive when it came to connecting the engine to the rear wheels. Chrysler's Fluid-Drive is probably the best known semi-automatic, but there were others, even a semi-auto version of the PowerGlide. Packard's Electromatic used vacuum to operate the clutch, based on similar parameters to the Citroën DS mentioned above. The shifter was moved by the driver. Ford's Model 'T' trans was actually very similar to an automatic, save that the band application was by foot pedal, rather than hydraulic piston. Chevrolet had a Vacamatic sytem that used vacuum to assist moving the column shifter during shifting. An Owen Magnetic was a make in the late 'teens that used an electro-magnetic trans, the specifics of which I have never seen in print. Friction drive was common in the late 'oughties and early 'teens; literally it was an engine-driven wheel pressing against a disc. The wheel on some could be moved in relation to the disc to effect a sort of 'gear change'. There were manual transmisions whose innards were chain-driven; the input gears drove the output gears by chain, it made internal ratio changes quite easy. (Fraser-Nash, Zundapp). Clutches aren't always a disc pressed between two plates, either. Hudson for years fitted a multiple-disc clutch that ran in oil, very similar to modern motorcycle pratice. Other clutches were of a cone shape that fitted into a mating cone; some were of a spiral spring that would tighten on the drive as power increased; others were like a drum brake. Doubtless there are other types I haven't seen or heard about, too. Early cars and their mechnicals are a fascinating topic, as in the early years there was neither convention nor computers to aid in design. Today's cars are rather boring as a consequence of experience, computers, and government mandate (the latter is why motorcycles shift on the left, and car drivers know PRNDL to be a noun... ). Cosmo
I believe Edsel also used a pushbutton setup at one time. the buttons were steering wheel mounted and electrically controlled.. From what i've heard, it was plauged by electrical gremlins from the get go.
I had an Edsel a few years ago. Most of the Edsels I looked at had a coat hanger coming up through the floor because the buttons didn't work anymore! The transmission was exactly the same cruise-o-matic as the non-push button models. The lever on the trans was operated by a small electric motor mounted in front it. The buttons were just electric contact switches and depending on which one was pushed in, that determined how far the motor would rotate the lever. I actually took apart the whole system and got it all working just fine. According to my glossary of hotrodding terms from the '60s they called using a push button tranny "running a typewriter"
I know of a junker 56 Doddge that has a 2spd "Jukebox" pushbutton transmission. Oh Louis, where are you Louis ?
I have been wanting a push button tranny for a "supertopsecret"TM project that I have going on. RASHY are you paying attention to this? Ha Ha Ha
i know this isnt the "classifieds" section, but since its about pushbutton trannys.....i got an entire car with a working pushbutton tranny that i may be willing to part with. its a '64 chrysler 300 four door (postless) hardtop. big block 383. runs and drives. needs brakes and i think she would be ready to drive on the road. also need quarter panel. (previous owner used bondo to fix it) only thing i think is missing is one hubcap. i can e-mail pics to who ever is interested. PM me. ~northcoastgreaser
They worked two ways, some electric and some cable (mechanical). The MOPAR units with the pushbutton shift had a different valve body than the same tranny with a standard linkage. You can convert a standard 727 Torque flite to a pushbutton, but you have to have all the stuff. I don't recall ever seeing a peugot with a a pushbutton but that doesn't mean they didn't exist, I just don't remember ever seeing one. There was a lot of different shifters built in the '50s and '60s. Some resembled a stick shift on the dash etc.
If youn want a LONG cable shift with a dash mounted stick look for old dodge postal trucks my uncle had 2 late 60s dodge postal vans that were right hand drive and they had a stick shift that was about 6 inches long mounted in the dash self contained with about 8 feet of cable think large version of the old corvair/pontiac tempest popsicle stick shifter
Sorry to bring down the standard of this post but it's so funny when you blokes call a gearbox a Tranny. It means something else entirely over here.
Yes, well if you find a shift lever under her skirt, that is an entirely different thing.... Rambler had a similar push-button deal to the Chryslers as factory on their Borg-Warner auto trans (which was also used in some Studebakers and Jeeps). I think some Fords used this trans too, have to recheck the Motors books - might be able to swap the Rambler valve body into a Ford and get a cable push button setup in an otherwise stock car. Not sure how their Park works, my Rambler is a pull handle below the dash and it does still work. Rambler had a torque tube drive, although the others didn't so you could again change this if you wanted. The buttons replaced a dash lever on 1955 Mopars. If you want to run one with a later motor, you'll want a '62-'65 trans. 63-65's are a little different from the '62 type - more info at Forwardlook.net I think on that one. '62 is supposed to be a direct replacement to 56-61 cars, but all aluminum and with a real Park instead of the drum on the back if I remember right. The one guy I knew with an Edsel, he had a '57 Ford column in it and I think he'd added a floor shifter out of a T-bird for the trans. Maybe they should have used the cable setup the Ramblers used.... By the way, Moon makes an all new electric pushbutton shifter setup that can be used on any trans. Other than the button assembly looks like some modern billet crap with an optional goofy digital gear indicator, that might work if you don't want to search for a 40 year old working/rebuildable transmission. I suppose just recess it in so only the buttons show, put a stainless plate over it, and it would look okay. (What I would do is hide them in the body, under the dial holes of an old-style phone made to look like a '50s custom show car mobile phone, that aught to mess with some people, especially if you can make it so you have to dial it over to pick a gear).
I've got a trans and 64 pushbutton shifter that I'm waiting for a car to match,even got the radio delete plate for a64 also. The aluminum trans were really easy to adjust ,a fine threaded wheel would turn around the cable for depth adj. The cable was extended the furthest in reverse and with someone holding the button in reverse the cable is inserted as far as it can go and the wheel is spun to where a lock screw anchors it. The link on the valve body has a small clip that will not release the cable onco it's inserted. The pan has to come off and the clip released to get the cable back out. The early trans have a different spline on the convertor but they can be changed with a later model shaft ok.
Nope ,I know nothing about the Iron units. The early (maybe pre 67) aluminum were different splined on the convertor. AS far as I know ,1965 cars ,with the 727, were the only cars witha slip yoke and cable shift. The cars actually had a lever shifter but down on the column they changed to cable. Some Mopar Gurus can pin this down a little closer. I scabbed on my trans because of the slip yoke and cable shift. Quite a few were made with the Ball and Trunion joint but I don't know what is needed to change to a slip yoke. Even more strange is I think some of the early aluminums even had a rear pump . Hope this helps.
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