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Anybody drive a squarebodied 3-on-the-tree?

campfire

campfire

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Found one in the junkyard this week. 1986 C10, V6 in front of a 3-on-the-tree. Stripped-down model. Almost as bare as a CUCV (down to having no dome light or dash vents). Carried a fairly nice camping topper in the back. I forgot my camera, so I have no pictures of it. Anybody drive such a truck? I had thought 3-on-the-trees were discontinued before 1986. :dunno: Anybody know how late they were made?

This isn't intended as a classified post, but if someone is dying for a column shifter I can go back and see if it's still there...
 
I drove a 1973 that had one...a C10 with a 350 ..pretty peppy with a manual tranny too!..

I've read the 3 on the tree was an option (or base equipment?) up until 1987,but I have never seen one later than the late 70's...but thats probably because only a very few stubborn old grandfathers and maybe fleet buyers like telephone or electric company trucks who ordered a plain jane straight six truck with manual crank up windows,no A/C and no other options were the only ones who got them...most trucks around here came with "trim packages" that had V8's ,automatic trannies,A/C,"deluxe" interior,etc..

I have seen a few 71-72 K5 Blazers with a rare 3 on the floor Muncie tranny,coupled to a Dana 20 transfer case--used only on straight six and 307 V8 models...
 
diesel4me said:
I drove a 1973 that had one...a C10 with a 350 ..pretty peppy with a manual tranny too!..

I've read the 3 on the tree was an option (or base equipment?) up until 1987,but I have never seen one later than the late 70's...but thats probably because only a very few stubborn old grandfathers and maybe fleet buyers like telephone or electric company trucks who ordered a plain jane straight six truck with manual crank up windows,no A/C and no other options were the only ones who got them...most trucks around here came with "trim packages" that had V8's ,automatic trannies,A/C,"deluxe" interior,etc..

I have seen a few 71-72 K5 Blazers with a rare 3 on the floor Muncie tranny,coupled to a Dana 20 transfer case--used only on straight six and 307 V8 models...
Click to expand...

The lateness of this truck is what surprised me...it is by far the newest 3-on-the-tree I've run across. And mated to a V6...the new world is meeting the old world. Definitely an odd duck.
 
A guy I used to work with had an 81 or 82 with a strait 6 and 3 on the tree. Newest that I've seen.
 
I bought a wrecked 2wd either 85 or 86 don't remember now. Bought it sight unseen for a parts truck and got it delivered to my house. Was surprised to get home and see it was 6 cyl with 3 on the tree. I always thought they were discontinued in the 70s.

Later on I met a guy with a mid 80s (don't remember for sure) 4wd short bed that looked new and had a 3 on the tree. Said he drove it every day and loved it.
 
I've never seen a v6 column shift. I have seen them on 307s and straight 6s.

The column shift with a bench seat makes a real nice driver. I would definitely prefer one for an around town truck.

I had a 74 nova with a 3 speed and two bench seats for most of my senior year in high school. You could fit a lot of girls in that car :pimp:
 
I had an 86 c10 with a 4.3/3 speed. It was a column shift if I recall, but it was swapped to a floor shifter. Was a neat lil truck.
 
There is a early 80's C10 at my local junkyard, what got me first was that it's body was perfect, not a spot of rust and maybe 3 little dents.
After I got to looking at it I realized that it was an I-6 with a 3 on the tree. why anybody scrapped this truck is beyond me.

The weirdest part was that it had power windows, I don't remember what trim level it was, I'll look next time I go down there.
 
The Griff said:
There is a early 80's C10 at my local junkyard, what got me first was that it's body was perfect, not a spot of rust and maybe 3 little dents.
After I got to looking at it I realized that it was an I-6 with a 3 on the tree. why anybody scrapped this truck is beyond me.

The weirdest part was that it had power windows, I don't remember what trim level it was, I'll look next time I go down there.
Click to expand...

Most likely it was "Grandpa's truck"..and Grandpa passed away,and his heirs scrapped the truck,rather than give some enthusiast a chance to own it...sadly I've seen that scenario played out around here many times..

An elderly customer that came in a parts store I worked at years ago,who had probably THE most rust free ,sweet running '69 C10 pickup I'd seen,with a 292 and three on the tree,died one day of a heart attack--and his wife decided the truck was "an old hunk of junk" and sold it to a salvage yard ,instead of putting it up for sale..got 200 whole dollars for it...
I would have given 1000-1500 for it,even though it was only 2wd..it was that nice..
 
I never had a chevy one. Had a 68 F100 390 with 3 on the tree. What a gutless turd but it was my first vehicle when I was 14.
 
I learned to drive in a '71 Toyota FJ-40 with a 3-on-the-tree....still have it also. Drove it pretty regularly when I was in high school.
 
Three on the tree trannies are neat for nostalgia and make good drivers around town, plus most people don't know how to drive one, so no one's going to steal or ask to borrow it. I find it amusing that automakers even bothered to continue offering it, since three speeds began being replaced by four speeds in the 50's, were rare by the 70's, and antiques by the 80's. I guess trucks were always a little slow to catch up with technology. In fact, as far as I know, Chevy trucks and vans have the dubious distinction of being the last vehicles to be offered with a three speed manual, with the final year being 1987. I think Ford also offered one in some models ending about the same time. However, I'd bet that a 1987 truck/van with a 3 speed is probably rarer than a unicorn.
 
I have a friend with a '78 G-10 Chevy van that has a 250 straight six,and a 3 on the floor,factory!...

I've actually seen another one like it in a junkyard too--the tranny is similar to the pickup & car 3 speeds,but its mounted weird,it has a goofy rear tailshaft mount,and the shifter is quite bizzare !..its been years since I saw it,but I seem to recall the tranny looked like it was "upside down" compared to how it was mounted in a pickup or car...

I helped him change a head gasket in it--he was going to junk it,I told him that was stupid,to scrap a otherwise decent van just because a 15 dollar head gasket blew!..we were able to do the job sitting in the front seats mostly too!..we never had the head checked or planed either,just scraped it clean and threw it together...it ran better than it ever did too..
 
The main problem I always had with the column shifters was that when the little plastic pieces in the sleeve wore out, it was unrepairable unless you replaced everything. Plastic and metal.
And they never had the parts you needed.

I installed a Mr. Gasket floor shifter kit in one in the middle of the river swamp, by firelight one evening.
Using a pair of Vice Grips, a small hatchet, an ax, and a file sharpened 20P nail to make the mounting holes.
Worked great, and he drove that truck for years afterward.
 
My 77 c10 that i miss so much was a 3 on the tree. Pretty easy and fun to drive actually.

IMAG1260_zps2af9b5b4.jpg
 
Boy...if this thread gets much worse you are gonna talk me into buying the column/tranny for my upcoming manual swap. :doah:

(I still prefer 5-speeds)
 
I hated the 3 on the tree shifter in my '56 Pickup...it often got hung up when you went to shift into first gear from second after you came to a stop,and you had to get out,open the hood,reach down and grab one of the shift linkages and pull it back up till it aligned with the other one,then it would shift fine again..

Sometimes it would do it every day,other times you could drive it weeks without it happening..usually it always "stuck" when I was at the very top of a steep hill at a stop sign,and I had no choice but to wind it out and dump the clutch (or ride it till it smoked) and take off in second gear, to get onto the next street so I could park and fiddle with the linkages..:mad:...and forget winning any drag races with it,speed shifting it was gauranteed to jam it up every time!...

I wanted SO bad to buy one of those "Spark-O-Matic" floor shifters I saw at the parts stores ,but I never did..if I had I may have never sold that truck..
I was only 18 then,and wasn't very skilled at auto repair yet..wish now I'd kept that truck,and put a 4x4 chassis under it...:doah:
 
My grandfather had a 68 Elcamino that behaved exactly the same way. I grew to enjoy stopping traffic to pop the good and shift it with the linkage.
 
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