Ha.. yes my 1949 Triumph Renown has a similar 'highly accurate' column
shifter... must have been made by the same bunch of back-garden engineers!
(...or perhaps, dare I say... Lucas? ;o)
I've found that by paying *very* careful attention to all the rubber
insulating joints that it can be made into a moderately tolerable
mechanisim, but even then it's very much 'shift and pray', with each shift
being taken at a leisurely but quite deliberate pace. How the heck did
they ever sell these things off the showroom floor - they can't have been
any better when new!
-Kevin McLemore
----Original Message Follows----
From: Jan Eyerman <jan.eyerman@usa.net>
Reply-To: Jan Eyerman <jan.eyerman@usa.net>
To: <RootesRooter@aol.com>, <alpines@autox.team.net>
Subject: Early Alpine ('53-55) Shifting
Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 13:26:51 -0500
Great writing! I corresponded with him many, many years ago. He is my all
time favorite automotive writer, I used to get Mechanix Illustrated (now
sadly
gone) just because of him.
He was probably being generous about Rootes' column shifter-you push or pull
the lever and pray. Maybe you get the right gear, maybe you get no gear at
all or maybe you get terrible noises. You also learn to let up the clutch
SLOWLY in case you hit second when you were aiming at fourth. If the car
slows
down and the engine revs up, you missed fourth and must try again. There
was
a beautiful accessory floor shift for the early Alpines, it vastly improved
the shifting!
Jan Eyerman
RootesRooter@aol.com wrote:
Referring to the '54 Alpine:
"The column-mounted, reverse-pattern shifter is still as balky as when
McCahill called it b as easy... as driving a Navy blimp through the Lincoln
tunnel without touching the walls.b "
Now that is great writing...
In a message dated 12/10/02 3:25:27 AM Pacific Standard Time,
rmaddock@petrie.hotkey.net.au writes:
<< Hope this link works. If not, go to www.autoweek.com and you should see a
Sunbeam Alpine link under the heading Recent Stories.
http://www.autoweek.com/cat_content.mv?port_code=autoweek&cat_code=thecar&loc_
code=index&content_code=03318193
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