Left Handed Skyhook? - Orig Owner Story and Option

[BBIGG BLOCK 396]

I had a 400 turbo in a 55 Chevy,and it would shift into second by itself but you physically had to bump the steering mounted original powerglide lever to second then bump it aagain to third.The shifter never moved on its own.That is the first time I have heard of the shifter moving automatically but sounds cool! I love those 400 turbos,great trannies!I know that on the 55 I had about 5 or 6 times letting the 400 shift automatically I always had a pinion seal start leaking!I guess it was because when that baby did hit second gear it was a real neck jerker no telling what angle that stock rearend with 4.11 gears was torqued into when that thing hit.A short story here! I rebuilt all the front end and had a new engine built for my car and worked on it all winter one year!The engine builder was an OLD Dirt tracker and had built many many engines,so he built me one and did a bunch of his old racing tricks,some of them he wouldn't even tell me what they were and the engine sounded REALLY AWSOME! Well I really wanted to test drive it to see how it performed because it sounded SO GOOD! I was a little scared to get into it too much because of the front end steering being way out of whack.So I drive very carefully to the tire center had the OLD Gent that did alignments do it up right.They was all finished and on the way home is this little stretch of road that is really straight! and about 2 miles long! Well you guessed it I stopped held the brake slightly stomped the gas and away we went,the tach was buzzing 6800 and all of a sudden the 400 shifted! BAMN ,SCRAPE, BANG, BANG BOOM! I came to a screetching halt! The engine performed so well it completely wiped out the drive shaft.The shaft was twisted beyond repair,also the steel pinion yoke on the rearend was destroyed! The only thing any good was the yoke that slid into the trannie! I called my little brother ,he drove a big wrecker and hauled it home for me and took me to this little machine shop he knew of.I showed the guy the drive shaft,yoke etc and he laughed and said you must be running a good 400 turbo.For $175.00 I will build you a balanced drive shaft that won't break!He did just that,I had that old 55 until 1995 and In those 10 years I never broke a u joint,drive shaft or a yoke.But I did replace a few pinion seals.But it sure was fun when someone wanted to play a little and you were side by side until that 400 hit 2nd gear then the 55 started pulling away really hard and after 3rd most of the time I was well ahead.But a couple of times I picked on some cars that all I seen was taillights! I often thought about a 200 shot of that Nitrous stuff but I really like all engine!Sure do miss that old 55 it was a really fine looker and one hell of a runner.That old dirt Track guy really knew his stuff when it came to small block chevy engines.Now I need to find me someone like that to do a couple Mopar 340 engines! Need a really good stroked 340 for that Gasser out of Illinois coming in a couple of weeks!

Bobby

[69LM1]

Nice Story.

My shifter does not move. I still have to manually move it up.

Rich