David-

Everyone knows that a torque converter is NOT like grapefruit halves
rotating in oil...They are like toasted whole wheat pita bread, rotating in
pimento Cheese fondue. Or pie shells rotating in honey. Or two pizzas,
rotating in buttery garlic sauce. MMMmmmmmmm, now that's more like it.

(sorry, It would be stale by Friday)

G. Matthew Bulley
Bulley-Hewlett
Corporate Communications Counselors
www.bulley-hewlett.com
Cary, NC USA
888.468.4880 tollfree
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-----Original Message-----
From:   David Beierl [SMTP:dbeierl@IBM.NET]
Sent:   Monday, November 29, 1999 10:10 PM
To:     vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject:        Re: what to do?

At 16:20 11/29/99 , Jay & Kim Schmidt wrote:
>PS: Please speak slowly. This is my first(and last) automatic and I don't
>understand what this TC is/does really.  Thank you!

A torque converter is something like a couple of grapefruit halves (with
segments removed but the membranes still intact) facing each other in a
bowl of oil.  The motor spins one which pumps the oil around and imparts a
torque to the other one (which tries to turn the transmission).  This is
what substitutes for the clutch in an auto-transmission setup.  There are
some internal losses, so nowadays a lot of cars have a clutch which locks
up the torque converter when the car exceeds a certain speed.

david
David Beierl - Providence, RI
  http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'84 Westy "Dutiful Passage"
'85 GL "Poor Relation"