[racprops]

OR:

Years ago I planned on using the whole old Borg Warner 3 speed with OD transmission, without first gear, but using the 3rd and 2nd gears as a under drive, with 3 at 1:1 being no under drive and 2nd as a under drive...with these transmissions you can engage or disengage the OD as it is its own transmission at will so I could split all gears...
They had a feature called freewheeling, it was a one way sprang that without power to lock it up allows the engine to drop to idle, and just a little push on the gas and it would spin up and lock.

This will allow me to coast (hypermileing...) without really taking it out of gear (which I believe is illegal) but as it would be just idling keep all my power extras like steering, A/C and brakes all working...

On these old overdrives have a pull or push control cable would either free it up to free wheel or to lock up and give engine braking.

SO I would have an 8 speed with a 2 speed rear end. OR another way to look at it a 16 gear system. 8 low and 8 high.

I still have two of the OLD Borg Warner 3 speeds with OD in storage. One was rebuilt without the first and reverse gear.

One major problem is building a new front end and either a direct connection to the output shaft of the front transmission OR a yoke and with a support bearing (Perhaps) and then mounting it a midships as a brownie with a short drive shaft with the correct off set for the u-joints.

BUT building a shifter and mounting it the floor and the cable control and then adding a modern VSS sensor kind makes it a bit much, and adding that old cast iron tranny is another pain. AND a weight cost as well.

On the other hand perhaps I can rig up an electric powered shifter to shift from third to second and back again…as I have learned with these old over drive tranys, with it in freewheeling even shifts into the non-synchronized first gear was a possible due to the lack of any power (load) on the drive shaft…

The over drive is cable and electric control plus a manual lock out by the shifter so a powered shifter to lock out the OD by shifting into reverse, note there is no reverse gear, but this could be a control to be sure anytime I shift into reverse automatically lock out the over drive, and perhaps as an on/off control as well.

I will look into the gear massup with a 4L80 transmission.

Rich

I found out I maybe wrong about the freewheeling feature of the old OD, seems one in OD that is locked out by the overdrive, it is only in use in gears before OD is ingaged, it is needed to allow it to shift INTO OD.