376.59 Miles Per Gallon!

Email

Member
Local time
1:22 PM
Joined
Jul 15, 2008
Messages
98
Location
Huntsville, AL
I did a search and did not see it on the forums. I thought you all might like to discuss this ancient wonder from 1973. And yes, it is a car not a bicycle, but because some of you do ride a bike for the MPG vs purely for the health I decided it was worth posting.

Long story short, Chevron has this contest every year and back in 1973, a group rebuilt a 1959 Opal which got 376.9 miles per gallon. It sat in front of a racetrack for many years forgotten and was sold to a scrap yard. Someone recognized it and restored it and recently sold it, after much publicity and fanfare.

From the Handbook <- Click for image

Here's a better link from the people that found it.
 
Last edited:
hi; i saw a story about that last year, it is in seattle in a car dealers collection. also in the area is the worlds largest auto collection, about 2,000, the owner had a trash collection outfit. le mays is open to the public one day a year. nhra nats is this weekend, and good guys is next week. i love cars. shame shame, mtch
 
From here

There are two basic types of manual transmissions. The sliding-gear type and the constant-mesh design. With the basic -- and now obsolete -- sliding-gear type, nothing is turning inside the transmission case except the main drive gear and cluster gear when the trans is in neutral. In order to mesh the gears and apply engine power to move the vehicle, the driver presses the clutch pedal and moves the shifter handle, which in turn moves the shift linkage and forks to slide a gear along the mainshaft, which is mounted directly above the cluster. Once the gears are meshed, the clutch pedal is released and the engine's power is sent to the drive wheels. There can be several gears on the mainshaft of different diameters and tooth counts, and the transmission shift linkage is designed so the driver has to unmesh one gear before being able to mesh another. With these older transmissions, gear clash is a problem because the gears are all rotating at different speeds.
 
From here

There are two basic types of manual transmissions. The sliding-gear type and the constant-mesh design. With the basic -- and now obsolete -- sliding-gear type, nothing is turning inside the transmission case except the main drive gear and cluster gear when the trans is in neutral. In order to mesh the gears and apply engine power to move the vehicle, the driver presses the clutch pedal and moves the shifter handle, which in turn moves the shift linkage and forks to slide a gear along the mainshaft, which is mounted directly above the cluster. Once the gears are meshed, the clutch pedal is released and the engine's power is sent to the drive wheels. There can be several gears on the mainshaft of different diameters and tooth counts, and the transmission shift linkage is designed so the driver has to unmesh one gear before being able to mesh another. With these older transmissions, gear clash is a problem because the gears are all rotating at different speeds.

huh? :eek:
 
Back
Top