Talk:Manumatic

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The "Manumatic" (copyrighted by Borg and Beck) transmission was offered on several British cars in 1957-59. The system was based upon a dual clutch arrangement where the regular clutch was activated by a vacuum mechanism controlled by an electric control box and a second, centrifical clutch was co-located in the clutch housing. An electric switch on the steering coulmn gear shift activated the electric control box which in turn activated the vacuum mechanism (consisting of a vacuum tank and a vacuum cylinder). There were only two pedals on the floor-the brake and the gas. To start off, you grabbed the gearshift lever, activating the gearchange lever switch, which inturn activated the controlbox which then activated the vacuum cylinder to disengage the clutch. You then put the gearshift lever in the usual place for first gear (or reverse if that is the direction you wanted to go). When you let go of the shift lever, the vacuum mechanism would reengage the clutch. However, the car did not move as the centrifical clutch was not yet engaged. Appling power (the gas) increased the speed of the engine and caused the centrifigal clutch to slowly engage and away you went. At least until you needed to change gears again. When touched the gearshift lever, intending to shift into second gear, the vacuum mechanism again disengaged the clutch. Once the transmission was in second, you could let go of the gear shift and vacuum mechanism would release the clutch.... but again you would need to apply power until the centrifical clutch engaged. You did this through all four gears. An advantage of the centrifical clutch is that the engine had to be spinning faster then the transmission in order for the centrifical clutch to engage-eliminating rough engagements. Needless to say, this was a rather complicated mechanism, requiring special parts to keep serviced. However, it did allow “one foot” driving. This transmission was only used in England for a few years at the end of the fifties on cars of about 1 1/2 liter capacity (Morris Oxford, Hillman Minx). In the Rootes cars (Hillman and Singer) it was replaced by the Easidrive fully automatic transmission in 1960.

I have copied the above text (which was not written by me but which I believe to be accurate) to the main body of the article. Biscuittin 12:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)