Hi, THIS IS MY 71 GS 350 FRAME UP RESTO 12 YEARS AGO. JUST TURNED 100,000 MI. WITH APPROX 12,000 ON REBUILD. MY QUESTION IS . I WAS AT A LOCAL CAR SHOW THIS WEEKEND AND HAD A TRANSMISSION MECHANIC ASK WHAT TRANSMISSION I HAD. TH350! HE SAID THAT IF THE SHIFT SELECTOR SHOWED D L1 L2 THAT IT WAS SUPPOSE TO BE A TH400? [ NO L'S ON 350] ANY INFO APPRECIATED. THANK YOU, GORDON IN VERMONT
This reminds me of an encounter I had with a transmission mechanic who stopped to look at my car at our Bellmore cruise night. I told him about my switch pitch transmission. He told me he had been working on transmissions for 25 years, and that he had never heard of such a thing. He got quite insistent that I must be mistaken. I went in my trunk and came out with a copy of Ron Sessions' book, "How to Work with and Modify the Turbo Hydramatic 400 Transmission". I had him read pages 205-207 while I went to get something to drink. I returned to him shaking his head still saying he had never heard of that. I guess he learned something that night.:grin:
I ran into the same thing in the '80's, but in this case it was just a problem with my terminology. GM never called it "switch pitch", but rather "variable pitch", which they guy actually had heard of. Devon
They mention variable pitch in the book, and I initially used that terminology while trying to convince him, but he was just as clueless after reading.
Just goes to show you should never say you've seen it all. I still run into Chevy guys that have no idea about anything that didn't have a bow tie on it. Ignorance truly is bliss. Back when I still had the T400 SP, one guy went for a ride in my car and ask how long my transmission had been slipping. I showed him that it was on command with the shifter button and he was still convinced it was harmful to the transmission. Magic does exist to some people.
Functionally you can only have high or low stall, nothing in between. So "switch" makes more sense than "variable". Bruce Roe
