[AT] OT I'm getting older are you?

[Chuck Bealke]

On 1/28/2010 4:57 PM, Gene Dotson wrote:
>      Our Dad's 1949 Packard used a vacuum override for the starter switch on
> the accererator pedal. When the engine started the engine vacuum disabled
> the starter. Buick may have had the same system.
>    
Gene,

This reminds me of another vacuum operated feature that might never pass 
safety rules today.  Starting at about 14, I occasionally drove a long 
'53 GMC 1 1/2 ton truck with a grain bed, sometimes topped by a cattle 
rack.  It had a two-speed axle, which I think was vacuum actuated.  The 
farmer I worked for, who owned the truck, gave me a serious instruction. 
He warned me that if I left the axle in high speed and parked it in gear 
facing up a slope without remembering to put the brake on, it would 
eventually lose connection to the engine and start rolling backwards.  
He had done it once to some kind of ill effect.  My rule was to ALWAYS 
set the axle to low speed before parking and leaving it.  That way, if I 
forgot to put the brake on, nothing would get bent.  Vacuum operated 
windshield wipers were not so comforting either - 'specially when you 
were climbing a long grade on long winding road with oncoming traffic.

Chuck Bealke