Wow, forgot all about the "3 on the tree". My dad had a late 70's Ford Econoline with the 3 on the tree paired to the inline 6. That old van ran forever. It did rust our pretty bad from what I remember.

 

My 78 F150 did not have cats. GVW was 6100.

 

Remeber those old smog pumps(we called them). They just pumped air into the exhaust, so the exit of the tailpipe had less % of CO2

 

Learning to drive a stick...

Just out of high school I applied for a painting job. Only reason I got hired was I had a drivers license. Most of the other employees were drunks that had long ago lost their licenses. First morning, three of us get in a 1967 Econoline and to my horror it was 'three on a tree'.

I needed this job bad so without a word, off we went.
The van had a drivers seat and the two drunks were sitting on five gallon buckets.

Had to go through a neighborhood and at 7am on every corner there were kids waiting for the school bus.

The van bucked and rocked violently like a wild bronco leaving every stop sign.
The drunks were getting tossed all over the place.
The kids are laughing and shouting, an experience I'll never forget.
Everyday for a week the kids looked forward to us going by.
Me learning to drive a stick was providing them great entertainment.
And imagine being hungover and trying to ride a bucket under these conditions, I wasn't making any friends at work.
Nobody wanted to go to lunch with me.

The paint was 'well mixed' when we got to the job site.

 

a friend had about a 85-86 scottsdale 20 that didnt have converters from the factory

ive seen an e-van with a 4 speed in the floor..pretty cool.

 

While they may have still been produced in my early driving days (early-80's) "three-on-the-tree's" must have been extrememly rare by then, as I cannot ever recall seeing one or driving one.

High schoolers in those days usually drove early-70's behemoths they inherited from their parents after the new K-car was purchased for the family truckster, so all of those had automatics. The rare kid that had a cool car (usually a late-60's era rust bucket) with a manual transmission was always found with the shifter on the floor.

The one thing I will say about the column shifter is that it must have been really hard to look cool while tooling around town with one of those things.....

 

Got my license in '72, took the test in a '61 Plymouth that was a 'Push Button' automatic.

I think they got the idea from the old jukeboxes that had these....



The buttons worked the same.

 

You mean those things that the bearings seized up on, and tore up the belts ?

 

I drove one of those once. Those pushbuttons felt weird. Chrysler dropped them because the cables would get gummed up and the pushbuttons almost to impossible to push.

 

Screech, kerplunk, poppoppop

 

This brings back memories of my Daddy's '66 F100. He bought it new and it still looked new (in spite of me!) when he traded it in on his van conversion over ten years later (I teased him about it being a "pu..y wagon"). The F100 had a 240" six with three on the tree. For only having a three speed, it had some serious torque at the wheels when in first. The box had a pretty wide gap between gears.

You all haven't lived until you have shifted five on the tree. Yes, five! One of the first trucks I ever drove was this cute little 2 ton cabover (it was ancient, I'm thinkin' it was an IH; they were good at coming up with bastard rigs back then) semi that had a 30' flatbed behind it used to haul steel street light poles. Other than the rubbery column shift (and no power steering and brakes, it actually was a joy to drive and back. It was odd that it had a column shift for the main box because it had a three speed brownie (an actual Brown-Lipe!) that had a wiggle stick sticking up through the dog house (the shifter, along with the parking brake lever, was mounted to a frame above the engine and stayed put when the cab was tilted). It had direct, under (for gear splitting), and one really serious granny.

 

God I love it when girls talk dirty to me.......

 

I turned the lights down and read it three times.

 

yea its hard to look cool driving a 3 speed column shift, whats worse is when you take it out by yourself for the first time and forget where reverse is, till you realized you just backed into someones car

 

The only 3 on the tree I've ever driven was a bright red '56 T-bird that belonged to a friend's dad.

I felt like I looked pretty cool, even though it was only like 2 miles, lol.

Was very surprised he offered to let me drive. I had not ever seen the car before, and had already said Hell Yes! before I knew it was a 3 on the tree.

In that case, the 3 on the tree experience sure beat driving a late '60's Dodge station wagon with a push button transmission, which I also got to do once.