<VV>Economy in 1959 NO CORVAIR

[Harry Yarnell]

'Grade retard' on the Turboglide wasn't a lower gear; it worked sorta like 
the reverse thrusters on a jet engine to slow it down on landing. I forget 
exactly how it worked, but it was a braking action, not a lower gear.

Harry Yarnell
Perryman Garage and Orphanage
hyarnell1 at earthlink.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Larry Forman" <larry at forman.net>
To: <FrankCB at aol.com>; <pp2 at 6007.us>; <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 2:39 PM
Subject: Re: <VV>Economy in 1959 NO CORVAIR


Hi Frank,
Then too in the late 50's was the infamous Turboglide which I had in my 59 
Impala convertible land yacht.  It was like the Buick Dynaflow and featured 
an infinite number of gears!  I foolishly installed a tach and it just SAT 
there when I floored it once it got to maybe 2500 rpms or possibly less. 
The engine just sat there and the car kept increasing in speed without much 
tach movement.  The engine was a 348 which became the 409 for racing.  It 
also had on the shift selector a position between L and D which was labeled 
as GR, which I always said stood for GRRRRR!  It was actually Grade Retard, 
so you could go down a steep grade and drop it into GR and if you were 
lucky, did not break the rear wheels loose, and just turned all the engine 
output into heat for the transmission!  Once I dropped it into GR when 
slowing down and pulling onto a huge gravel lot.  I did a donut before I 
could think about it as the rear wheels broke loose slowing down in the 
lower gear.

Larry
 _______________________________________________
This message was sent by the VirtualVairs mailing list, all copyrights are 
the property
of the writer, please attribute properly. For help, 
mailto:vv-help at corvair.org
This list sponsored by the Corvair Society of America, 
http://www.corvair.org/
Post messages to: VirtualVairs at corvair.org
Change your options: http://www.vv.corvair.org/mailman/options/virtualvairs
 _______________________________________________