Welcome to For the AGE'd!
Made you look! Whatever your calendar says, we're Auto Gear Equipment --- A G E --- and whether you're as manual-shift obsessed as we are, just gearbox curious, or somewhere in between, this page is where each week we'll talk gears and gearboxes, answer your questions, and respond to your comments. Come along. It's no fun without you.
February 05, 2019
There is a motorcycle manufacturer – you know the one – whose engine and exhaust notes are as jealously guarded as money in the bank. Recently, I had an interesting conversation with an Auto Gear m22 customer who maintained that the whine produced by GM’s ‘Rock Crusher’ four-speed was equally valuable. For him it was, in fact, the justification for acquiring one, and furthermore, because our ‘M22’ gearing isn’t as loud as the original, he also maintained that we clearly could not be manufacturing to original equipment specifications. As I’ve heard variations on this argument before I thought this might … Continue Reading
January 17, 2019
In 1901 Oldsmobile’s curved dash runabout was the best selling car in America and Ransom Eli Olds had a problem. He couldn’t build engines fast enough. He needed a second source. Olds turned to one of Detroit’s premier machine shops, Leland and Faulconer. Henry Martyn Leland accepted the challenge and, in his own way, duplicated the runabout’s engine. Now Olds had a second problem. Neither vendor could manufacture all the engines he needed, and Leland’s engine was significantly more powerful (3.7 horses rather than 3.0 – times have changed). Today, marketing would offer Oldsmobiles with Leland’s production as a sports … Continue Reading
January 25, 2018
If you frequent the various car-lunatic websites and social media, you’ve probably heard that the Napp family has shut down drag racing at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, aka Englishtown. We watched the NHRA Summer Nationals there year after year. Some of you undoubtedly grew up there, raced and wrenched there, made friends and memories there. I’m sure some people reading this said, every year, “I’m going to go see the Nitro cars there next year.” Or maybe dreamed of taking their ride to E-town and giving it a shot, to see how they stack up, and take a blast … Continue Reading
January 19, 2018
Some ‘Muscle car’ enthusiasts think of the Corvettes, Chevelles or GTOs of their youth and seek to restore their prized example to its showroom floor look and performance. Others dream of what they represented, the baddest and most powerful machines Detroit could build and tuners could modify; these cheerfully tap half-a-century of automotive progress and install engines, induction systems, and suspensions Zora-Duntov and Delorean could only dream of but certainly would have used if they were available. To service the beloved four-speed transmissions installed as original equipment or to harness the power now available, both groups — we’ll call the … Continue Reading
January 12, 2018
Hard anodized aluminum maindrive retainers for small flange (4.68 inch diameter) 1964-74 ‘Muncie’ and Auto Gear ‘Syracuse’ four-speed transmissions are now available. And they offer premium performance at a lower cost and half the weight! FEATURES/BENEFITS Original equipment technology. Minimum maindrive retainer durability requirements at General Motors and ford are for more shift cycles than your car will ever see, and both have approved and used hard anodized 356T6 aluminum designs. Made in America. Engineered, cast and machined in the United States, employing American workers, paying American taxes, and protecting American intellectual property. Superior installation tolerance. Aluminum bends where iron … Continue Reading
For several years every four-speed assembled in our plant has shipped in a special case casting with ‘SYRACUSE’ on the passenger side. It is, and will continue to be, your assurance that the gearbox you install is 100% AUTO GEAR in design, engineering, manufacture and assembly. There are, however, independent distributors who bring comparable skill and pride to our four-speed product, assembling gearboxes from the very same parts we use. They purchase kits we call ‘complete, knocked down’ (CKD), an automotive industry term typically used to describe complete automobile kits for assembly in export markets with local content preferences. Our … Continue Reading
January 07, 2018
‘Reverse engineering’ is a ten dollar way of saying ‘copying someone else’s work’. It sounds technical, it sounds professional, and it disguises the fact that we’re doing something our parents and teachers told us not to do. Nevertheless, when it comes to automotive service parts it is generally legal as long as features not essential to proper function aren’t duplicated — that would be illegal counterfeiting. If an item is ‘reverse engineered’ from a good sample — typically a single piece, rarely the number required to establish median dimensions or tolerances — and the person or persons hired to do … Continue Reading
