3-on-the-tree

From the "crazy ideas inside my head department"...

I was thinking the other day about the good-ol' 3-on-the-tree, and how as a kid growing up in the rural Midwest it was considered a complete, non-performance oriented joke among car-guys(right up there with 4-doors, anything less than a V8, and them there furrin' cars. lol).

Anyway, with DSG and paddle-shifted cars being all the new rage, it seems that all things being equal, a manual trans being shifted on the column - where you would be within much closer reach of the steering wheel, potentially not even having to remove your hand - would make for quicker shifting than on the floor/console.

Of course, the old-fashioned 3-on-the-tree was never smooth, precise or tight, but if someone made one with the throw & feel of a Miata, say, shouldn't in theory you be able to shift quicker...once you got used to it anyway?

Yeah, it's all complete babble from my brain. I just wondered if anyone else had ever considered it?

I'd thought about it. Thats why the Porsche GT transmission is all the way up on the dash, isn't it?

You'd have to update or reinvent all the monkey motion linkage between the steering column and the transmission.

3-on-the-tree = pure evil The only thing I hate as much as a 3 on the tree is the slanted shift gates on 40 year old volkswagens with all the letter rubbed off so you have absolutely no idea what gear you're in. And people who think that fixing the last thing to break on a car is equivalent to doing maintenance. I'd rather deal with Miata fanboys than any of those things.

I actually wanted to do that with a modern 5 speed. The idea would be to buy industrial push/pull sheathed cables and run them to the X/Y planes of the shifter. With an internal rail shifter, it would be pretty easy. Then I realized that if I ever sold this thing it would be a disaster, so I skipped it. For a car I would drive forever, especially a truck where a flat floor is a nice thing to have, I'd go with it.

In the two vehicles I've owned and driven with a three-on-the-tree...the shifter wasn't the problem...it was the lack of a synchronized first gear. What a complete pain in the...

So that's not really answering your question. I still like a standard "floor" (tunnel) shifter better.

Clem

I imagine that it would be dang near theft proof in most urban areas where it would be looked at as an automatic shift lever.

I remember driving a '66 Bronco in the early 90's that was a three on the tree. I was just out of high school and was asked by a passenger "why didn't you just leave it in drive?" Seriously, column shifters suck if you're in a hurry....

I have one on my truck. I think of it as an anti-theft device. Nobody, and I mean nobody knows how to drive them anymore.

didn't Datsun have a four on the column in thier trucks for a short while?

I forgot where I read this, but it was in a treatise on engineering and how fashion trumps common sense. (And no, it's from memory so probably missing something)

"In the 50's, the connon rear-drive transmission was under the center of the floor, so naturally we had flat floors and the shifter was in the steering column. In the 80's, front-drive is most common with the transmission right by the firewall, so naturally we have the shifter in the middle of a tall lengthwise hump in the floor..."

I think someone has already covered this....but with the advent of "by wire" technology, including steering by wire, isn't this kind of moot?

When I was a kid,each of my parents had a car with "3 on the tree". Us kids REALLY tore up my poor Dad's '64 Country Squire.

Alfa made some cars with a 5 speed column shift. They are supposed to be nice when working right, but I dont imagine that is very easy to accomplish.

Never had any trouble with my "three on the tree" cars.

Learn to adjust the slack out of the column assembly and keep it lubed and it's just fine.

Shawn

I used to be good at doing that. I had a little german car that had a 4 speed in/out of the dash, it was near the steering wheel like a 3 on the tree.

Our '63 SAAB has a '66 transmission with 4-on-the-column.

I've had two '59 Chevys and a '64 Suburban with straight six engines and three-speed column shifters. The bushings failed so fast that the shifters became so loose that if you weren't "in tune" with the car you couldn't shift it.

In high school, I had a 64 Chevy pickup with three on the tree and a non -synchro first gear. I loved it and miss it dearly (not the truck, just that column shifter).

At the same time, my best friend had a 70 Bronco with a 170 and three on the tree. We swapped trucks one day and there was a huge difference between the two shifters. The Chevy's throws were nice and short, whereas the throws on the Bronco swept across 160 degrees or so.

So, Gearheadotaku, don't dismiss three on the tree based on your experience with the Bronco. In that case they do suck.

This was painful for me at the time because, in my heart, I was a Ford guy.

modernbeat beat me to it. The old SAAB 96 (V-4) we had as a parts runner when I worked at my buddy's indie repair shop had one of those. First time i took it out, I'd never driven one before. My mom & dad paid the extra for automatics when I was a kid, because they'd hated the column shifters so much when they were young. But by the time I got the job at the shop, I'd been driving manuals for so long that I just thought, "..oh yeah, I've heard of these.." and just motored right out on down the road. I kind of enjoyed it, like a link to my ancient gearhead ancestors or something.

Found out when I returned that my buddy (SCCA buddy, about 20yrs older than I) had intended it to be a practical joke. I wasn't expected to be able to get the car to move at all, much less just jump in and go. Everybody at the shop was pretty impressed, and it got to the point where they'd say, "..yes, you can take the 96.." before I even asked.

EDIT: almost forgot to address Pete's original Q!..I like having the shift mechanism further away from the wheel when driving quickly, I'm worried that I'll hit it while cranking the wheel. Paddles may work on a race car, where there's only about 180deg of wheel rotation..but I'm a little afraid of them on a street car (or production based race car).

ClemSparks wrote: In the two vehicles I've owned and driven with a three-on-the-tree...the shifter wasn't the problem...it was the lack of a synchronized first gear. What a complete pain in the... So that's not really answering your question. I still like a standard "floor" (tunnel) shifter better. Clem

that's where I learned to double clutch...

Gearheadotaku wrote: didn't Datsun have a four on the column in thier trucks for a short while?

don't know about Datsun, but I learned on a Simca w/ 4 on the tree...

My only experience with a three-on-the-tree was with a 1962 Standard Vanguard station wagon> The thing had a Ferguson tractor motor. You could pull away from a level stop in third, it had so much torque at idle ! You would think that it would be fairly easy to build a modern tree shift with a front drive , cable shifted transmission.It would be fun to do, just to throw off your friends.

All 3 of my early Bronco's had the 3 on the tree....I didn't mind it so much...just part of the experience. My only other comparison was the '57 Chevy that my parent's had before I got my license.

I would rather have a 3 or 4 on the tree than the current crop of sega/x-box inspired paddle shifters.....

Never had a lack of speed shifting problem with a three on the tree. In fact it works quite well with ham fistedness, which tends to come with racing. The sloppyness is quite tolerant of hamfistedness.

Hand is off the steering wheel when shifting. No gain or loss there when compared to a floor shifter.

Not sure I would like a 5 in the tree at all. Trying to steer to a center gate would be a challenge, of the shifter was as sloppy as the standard 3 on the tree was. If it was modern tight, perhaps though. Similar shift throw lengths. Old 3 on the tree was very long on the throws, a modern one that was much shorter, could be interesting.

I speed shifted my Rambler when the 2nd gear stop or something broke and I ended up punching the windshield.

Ouch!

Years ago, I had dreams of adding a column shift set-up to my old van and adpating it to a T-5.

With modern cable-shifted transmissions, I've wondered how hard it would be to locate the shifter box to wherever your heart desired.

I test-drove a Saab 95 with a 4-on-the-tree. Was definitely one of the coolest aspects of the car.