George Graves says:
On a solid axle
car, a transmission/differential COULD, conceivably, be mounted in
unit with the solid half-shafts, but imagine the engineering problems
of coupling the shift mechanism to a transmission moving with the
suspension, not to mention the unsprung weight.
The American car industry is way ahead of you, George. There were in
fact several cars built in the Teens and Twenties that had gearboxes in
unit with the rear axle. The problem of unsprung weight was little
understood then - I wouldn't doubt that those designers thought that a
nice heavy back axle would "hold the road" better. I'm also going to
assume that those cars used the same sort of torque tube that Ford used,
with a single U-joint at the chosen pivot point and a tube-encased
driveshaft affixed to the tranny/final drive. That would simplify the
shift linkage problem, since you'd just need to have the shifter
alongside the shaft's pivot point and then the rest of the link would
just ride the shaft back.
I love archaic technology. It shows that people were thinking hard about
this stuff, even when they got it dead wrong.
Will
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