Considered Opinions

Chevy On My Foot

Part I – The Fine Art of Tire Barking

The practice of making the rear tires “bark” stems from the dawn of time in the auto industry, or at least to the time that teenagers began driving. A similar sound can be heard by “popping” the clutch at a stop sign or simply “slamming on” the brakes on smooth pavement, but there is far more to the art of “barking” than that.

The barker accelerates in first gear, causing the car’s weight to shift to the rear. Next, he quickly disengages the clutch while releasing the accelerator, causing the car’s weight to shift forward in a lurching motion. At the precise instant, he shifts from first into second gear, releases the clutch, and floors the throttle. The weight of the car at that point is mostly on the front tires, while the unloaded rear tires feel the full force of the torque. The resulting “bark” of the tires can be heard by giggling teenage girls from as far away as two to three blocks.

This technique works best on smooth asphalt, on hot days, with bald tires, and with your girlfriend sitting next to you^[i].. better yet, with someone else’s girlfriend watching. Mastering the technique unquestionably establishes the driver as a “cool dude”.

Part II – 3-on-The-Tree

I don’t know when GM produced their first 3-speed transmission; maybe in the late 1920s, but certainly by the mid-1930s. I will ask my friend Don Wise to help me with some details. My first “barking” experience was with my first car, a 1947 Chevrolet Coupe, which I bought for $50.00 in 1957 from a friend of my Dad, who lived on the other end of The Lake. I haven’t peered under the hood of a modern Chevy with a manual transmission recently (if they still offer one), but a similar shift linkage from decades earlier is probably still there.

When the shift lever is “on the floor”, the linkage is pretty simple, but for most cars, the lever is on the steering column instead (known as “3-on-the-tree”), which makes the linkage a bit more complicated. Translating that familiar “H” pattern of the shift lever into the rods and levers that push the gears around inside the “tranny”^[ii] That is auto-shop talk for “transmission”. So when you hear a mechanic referring to a “tranny”, he or she probably isn’t being transphobic. is more complicated than one might think.

The engineers at GM came up with a relatively simple scheme that accomplished the job with a mechanical escapement, composed of some levers and gadgets attached to the end of the steering column, which pick up and drop certain “dogs” in the proper sequence to put the “tranny” in the right gear.

This linkage works perfectly when it is new, but when it gets clogged with dirt and grime, or when it is worn from teenagers anxiously shifting from 1st to 2nd without the required momentary pause in neutral, shifting too fast can put you half in 2nd gear, while still being in 1st gear. In that case, everything locks up, and those “dogs” need to be manually realigned.

Part III – Humiliation

It was a warm Spring day in Three Rivers – probably 1958. The afternoon sun had brought the asphalt pavement on Portage Avenue to the ideal temperature for “barking”. As I approached the stop sign at the corner of E. Hoffman Street, there were no other cars to witness my heroics, but there was also never a better opportunity to practice what was arguably the most important thing I had learned in high school.

This would not be the first time I had made the same mistake, so once again, I tried to force the “tranny” into 2nd gear without allowing it time to drop out of 1st. Now, locked into neither gear, the only choice was to switch off the ignition, with the clutch disengaged, and coast to a stop.

I got out of the car, opened the hood, and stood next to the fender, where I could reach the linkage, just in front of the firewall on the base of the steering column. Unfortunately, my right foot was behind the left front tire as I pulled the “dogs” up into place. The “tranny” of course, went into neutral, and the Chevy rolled backward a few inches until the right rear tire hit the curb. That meant that the car had come to rest on my foot.^[iii]The photo shows the slight incline on the other side of the intersection and a curb on the right.

The next few minutes seemed like hours, but soon George Lowe and his father approached the Hoffman Street side of the intersection and recognized my car. George was a member of our car club, and his father was the Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, only a few blocks away on North Main Street. Together, they pushed the car ahead the necessary few inches, allowing me to pull my badly bruised foot out of my tennis shoe,^[iv]That’s what sneakers were called in the 1950s. leaving the shoe under the tire, but no bones were broken, only my pride.

As I recall, the experience was not sufficient to persuade me to start attending Rev. Lowe’s services, but I have no doubt that his association with the big guy had a lot to do with him showing up in my time of need.

 

By: Jim
Written: July 2023
Published: July 2023
Revised: 
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