Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
There was a manual shift version of the TH350, too!
wow, thats another TIL for me.
Have you heard of the "liquid tire chain" option GM had in the 60s?
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
There was a manual shift version of the TH350, too!
wow, thats another TIL for me.
Have you heard of the "liquid tire chain" option GM had in the 60s?
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
The stuff that was an option on (IIRC) Firebirds that would spray deicer goop onto the tires?
Yes.
I know an amazing amount of absolutely useless information...
TIL: Whitesnake was a British band. I always just assumed they were from California.
Today I learned that Avis tracks how much fuel is in your rental car while you are renting. I looked at my app to see if there were any warning about the hurricane in Florida and it showed that my GMC rental had 7.4 gallons of fuel in a 13.x gallon tank. I know that big brother is watching and I generally accept that issue free but that one surprised me.
TIL that the Hennessy Honda of Woodstock / Big Bag of Dicks saga was TEN YEARS AGO!!
Holy crap.
But I have stood in solidarity with our friend Poopshovel, and have never done business with Hennessy Honda of Woodstock / Big Bag of Dicks in the past decade for sure.
Peabody said:TIL that there was an entire series of NASCAR themed Harlequin romance books.
I was in Lancaster, PA earlier this summer and learned that they have an entire series of Amish / Mennonite themed romance books too.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to Peabody :
I was getting ready to buy a Malibu with a three speed manual. Like to say '81, it was definitely from before they renamed it G body.
That was the day I learned that not only did GM make 3 speed manuals well past their sell-by date, but they made manual transmission '78-87 midsizes.
Then I remembered that I had driven exactly three 3 speed manual cars, a '61 Rambler, a '69 Bronco, and a '50 Plymouth. And they all sucked. The Plymouth was mind-bogglingly smooth, at least, with its flathead six.
When I worked at the Corvette shop in high school we had a base engine/3 speed 69 convertible I drove pretty regularly while the boss tried to sell it. For an 18 year old it was a fun car but at a time when C3s were starting to take off we couldn't give this car away. There were like 200 of them built but rare definitely didn't equal valuable.
NY Nick said:Today I learned that Avis tracks how much fuel is in your rental car while you are renting. I looked at my app to see if there were any warning about the hurricane in Florida and it showed that my GMC rental had 7.4 gallons of fuel in a 13.x gallon tank. I know that big brother is watching and I generally accept that issue free but that one surprised me.
Fuel level in tank is already readily accessible data (computer needs to know what it is so the evaporative system tests are valid) so it is a no brainer to provide that information to someone who probably has no idea if their rental has a 10 or 30 gallon tank.
dammit Pete, i'm trying to get into that no-valve-body Turbo 350 rabbit hole and i can't find anything. got a link? help me TIL
Wally (Forum Supporter) said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to Peabody :
I was getting ready to buy a Malibu with a three speed manual. Like to say '81, it was definitely from before they renamed it G body.
That was the day I learned that not only did GM make 3 speed manuals well past their sell-by date, but they made manual transmission '78-87 midsizes.
Then I remembered that I had driven exactly three 3 speed manual cars, a '61 Rambler, a '69 Bronco, and a '50 Plymouth. And they all sucked. The Plymouth was mind-bogglingly smooth, at least, with its flathead six.
When I worked at the Corvette shop in high school we had a base engine/3 speed 69 convertible I drove pretty regularly while the boss tried to sell it. For an 18 year old it was a fun car but at a time when C3s were starting to take off we couldn't give this car away. There were like 200 of them built but rare definitely didn't equal valuable.
Right after my brother was born, July 1976, my father bought a 76 Pontiac Ventura coupe with a 6 pot and a three speed. We ended up taking that car to Germany when my dad got stationed there in the early 80's. The HG blew so he sold it to someone and then 3 years later bought it back and we took it back to the US with us.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:dammit Pete, i'm trying to get into that no-valve-body Turbo 350 rabbit hole and i can't find anything. got a link? help me TIL
okay, I must be in the negaverse. I clearly recall reading about a manual shift TH350 for use in select Novas and Camaros. I can't find any info either.
While hunting for that, I discovered the existence of this.
I am trying to imagine the chain of meetings that led to this bozoid idea: Air cooled torque converter. Given how common knowledge this is, I can imagine how well it worked.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Apparently, there was also an air-cooled TH350 to go with it.
From the HAMB- "H-body cars (Vega, Monza, Starfire Etc.) didn't have coolers. They had finned and ventilated torque converters. air inlet and outlets in the bell housing."
Almost all heat in an automatic comes from the torque converter, so putting the cooling there does make a kind of sense.
I mean, not as much sense as routing the fluid - the part that gets hot, as opposed to merely getting heated by the parts that get hot - through a cooler via the already-existing pump. Like GM had been doing for 30-odd years at that point.
But I am sure it made some kind of sense to someone. This is the same company that ten years earlier refused to put a stabilizer bar on the Corvair because it would have cost a couple bucks and the Corvair would then cost more than a Nova to make. Maybe they figured that making a special torque converter shell and bellhousing was not as expensive as having two different radiators and ten feet of hardline.
All the same, it does bring back the idea I had a ways back of putting a centripetal supercharger on the flexplate. Some WWII engines had centripetal superchargers, and the idea is pretty elegant.
...okay, is centripetal supercharging another one of those negaverse things?
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Evidently Smokey Yunick built a secret supercharger into the clutch of one of his NASCAR racecars.
24hoursoflemons.com: How about a Smokey Yunick flywheel supercharger?
Pete. (l33t FS) said:I know an amazing amount of absolutely useless information...
Whenever I start digging into the far back stored brain information I feel I've become this guy.
TIL: There is a Corvette parts breaker about 2 miles from my house. Looking at the satellite view on Google maps, it looks like they mainly have a ton of C4s on the lot. Who knew?
https://www.contemporarycorvette.com/
If anyone needs help with a large Vette part, let me know.
TIl: you can wash a lizard in the clothes washer and it will survive. I also learned that my wife does not enjoy finding a lizard in the laundry when tranfering it from the washer to the dryer. I got the impression that the lizard wasn't particularly fond of the whole experience either.
In reply to APEowner :
Scientists once froze a scorpion in a block of ice and when they thawed it out, the wee beastie carried on as if nothing had happened.
TiL: A Boxter 5spd will bolt up to a VW 2.0 TDI...
TIL that Buddy Miles, Hendrix's drummer in the Band of Gypsies, was also lead singer in the California Raisins.
TIL that it actually started off as a little ol' convoy.
I should have known that. 
preach said:TiL: A Boxter 5spd will bolt up to a VW 2.0 TDI...
I would hope it could. I've conquered? it in a crew cab F350 towing a boat and only had to pull off once to let a 350z by.
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