“Where’s the Dipstick?”


BY FRANK TALABER, of Gerry’s Automotive


You’ll be shocked to open the hood on many vehicles these days and discover that you can’t find the dipstick tube. Because there isn’t one. Or sometimes there’s a tube but only a cap on the end. Reminds me of the old lady from the Wendy’s ads in the eighties, staring at the large bun with a miniscule black lump in the centre hollering, “Where’s Te Beef?” So far many RV companies haven’t gone


that route but don’t be surprised if you buy your next RV or car and remark “Where’s the dipstick?” In fact we owe the birth of the automatic


transmission in 1940 to a fellow named Ransom Eli Olds from Lansing, Michigan. Ransom was a well-known inventor who


created the world’s first assembly line. It was good old Henry Ford who went one step further by making his assembly line movable, when his foreman, Two Cheese Burger McGinty, discovered his workers were too lazy aſter their lunch break to move to the next car in line. “Bugger that, I’ll have the car come to them.” Tis did increase production by 1.2 cars per month, setting a sales record for black


cars. Oh yeah, he also got a deal on black paint, hence the sales pitch, “Looks great in jet black, coal black or midnight black.” Actually he was colour blind and thought he’d bought three vats of dark blue, red and brown for his cars. Unfortunately, Ransom’s foreman, Two Tumbs McTavish, liked to smoke and


one day butted his cigarette into a tub of gasoline and burned down the entire plant. Otherwise he’d given his boss the distinction of the world’s first assembly line. Olds later got bought out by GM, and the rivalry between the two continued. Back to good old Ransom. His chauffer was old Gimpy Leſt Leg McIntosh, who


used to stall his Olds limo around town. “Heck of a time with this clutch pedal. Sorry sir.” Ransom had false teeth and in those days they didn’t sell PolyGrip yet. He got


tired of looking for his teeth under the car seats every time his chauffer jerked the car too hard, although he was known for finding more money under the back seats than any other executive in the company’s history. Ransom had enough, one day, aſter


finding his false teeth chipped yet again and decided to make the world’s first automatic transmission car as a novelty for himself. Tat


is until England came over the King of for a visit, and


from his back seat remarked, “By Jove, strange country America. No decent tea to be had anywhere, but I haven’t lost my false teeth once. I do believe, old chap, you will have to make one of these automatic-geared cars for my own chauffer, Too Bleeding Stiff Upper Lip McIlroy.” Of course once others saw what the King rode in, and the fact his teeth were in such excellent condition, they all wanted an automatic-geared vehicle as well. For many years you could only


buy Type A (oddly enough A meant Automatic) Fluid. Ten somewhere along the way the McTavish’s relatives at General Motors got wind of the Olds assembly line debacle and they never forgave the McGintys for crowing ‘we built it first at Henry’s plant’. Tey came up with Dexron, which aſter three beers they knew the McGintys could never pronounce. Ford, ignoring the dig and knowing they had to outdo the McTavishs, brought out Type F (weirdly enough this stands for Ford-O-Matic). Te basic difference between the two


is the friction modifiers. If you had a GM vehicle that was beginning to develop a tranny slip in the old days throw in a can of Type F and get nice crisp shiſts again. Well, until the tranny blew into a thousand pieces. An aside note here. Honda used


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engine oil in many of their earlier automatic transmissions and never had a removable filter or pan. (Sorry, I won’t even think of making any funny jokes about anyone that eats raw fish and knows karate and judo.) Up until the seventies, ATF contained


whale oil as friction modifier until GreenPeace came along and put a stop


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