If one shifter is good, then three must be better, right? Okay, maybe that wasn’t quite what was going on here. Call the Hurst Lightning Rods, a popular sight in a mid-’80s issue of Hot Rod, a road-going take on a Lenco transmission.
Operation of a Lenco is fairly straight-forward: When it’s time to shift gears, simply pull the appropriate …
Berkeley yeah! These are awesome.
As a young impressionable car guy, I thought those were rad.
Downshifting sequence is laid out before Upshifting sequence?
I guess you need to plan ahead when piloting a big hairy 180 bhp Cutlass
The in car video is a mopar a body. Looks to be 72-73 from what I see.
Aso, ive always wanted a set of these.
A 401 CJ said:
I guess you need to plan ahead when piloting a big hairy 180 bhp Cutlass
Its also hilarious that they threw an 8.5" 10-bolt in these. Because an Olds 307 would ever break the regular 8.2" rearend. But then they saddled the 4th-gen F-bodies with the puny 7.625" rearend, even with the healthy LS1s. You do you, GM. You do you.
When I was about 17 or 18 I got the chance to drive one of those Hurst/Olds, almost brand new. 'Rad' is the appropriate word.
What gear would this make? (the red dots)
In reply to ProDarwin :
Does that tilt the machine?
In reply to David S. Wallens :
i love the "Word Of The Day" series.
I am betting the mechanism won't allow it. Who has one we can try?
Lightning rods are so cool to look at I would put up with the automatic is a real Hurst car. Seems like a good way to control a full manual valve body.
In reply to ProDarwin :
That picture at the top, ugh. I guess we're supposed to believe that she's thinking, "Oooo, he's got three shafts!"
I'm fairly proficient with a 5 spd main and 2 speed aux in our old Autocar road tractor and I can't even figure out the stupid diagrams.
I bought the Hurst Lightning Rods and installed them into my 75 Chevelle that I had setup for autocrossing back in the mid 80's. I figured the 3 different rods would make it easier for me to "feel" which gear I had the transmission in as I was going around the cones. Everybody knows the Lightning Rods from the Hurst Olds , but you could buy them over the shelf and install them into any car.
There is no real mystery behind them. You hooked up to your 3 or 4 speed automatic transmission and the right-most rod shifted between gears 1 & 2 , the middle rod shifted between gears 2 & 3, and the left-most rod shifted you between P->N->D if you had a 3 speed , or P->N-D-OD if you had a 4 speed.
It was still just one cable going down to the shifting pawl on the transmission.
All of the "magic" was in the shifter itself as it was setup so that you had to shift the rods in sequence to go between the gears.
My Lightning Rods are still sitting in the car - which is currently in storage ...... waiting for the day when I can complete the resto-mod I started on it 20 years ago. :-(
AngryCorvair said:In reply to David S. Wallens :
i love the "Word Of The Day" series.
Thank you, thank you. More to come.
I had that shirt.
The fact that I knew from the title that this was about a shifter makes me feel old. *sigh*
Get off my lawn.
Yep, they are berkeleying awesome. Btw those are made by Kilduff Machine.
That is the strangest E36M3 I have never seen before. Just wow.
In reply to Gearheadotaku :
The mechanism will not allow it. All the Lightning Rods do is add some more shift handles onto the shifter mechanism. You're still just moving the shift cable back and forth to move the pawl on the side of the transmission.
The handles must be moved in succession to change thru the gears.
In reply to ProDarwin :
That would be the gear you can select when it was broken.
Intimidating car stuff when average folks get in your car.
"Don't touch these - I'm highly skilled in operating this".
A 401 CJ said:Downshifting sequence is laid out before Upshifting sequence?
I guess you need to plan ahead when piloting a big hairy 180 bhp Cutlass
How about a 600 horsepower Buick?
so the precursor to paddle shifters? I would have rather had a single stick with a "pattern"
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