The Daily Alaska empire., 1940-10-02
Dodge.FIuid DriyeIs in
 DodgelAlutos
New Method of Propulsion Marks New Era in
 Motoring, Claim


 It has been years since the auto mobile industry has produced an operating improvement approach ing in newness and general inter est the Fluid Drive which will be featured in l941 Dodge models, &C., cording to advices received by the owing -Davlin Company, auto firm of Juneau.
 in consequence there is wide spread curiosity regarding the quest! on--how and to what advan- tage the power of the automo- bile engine, ordinarily passed to the cars rear wheels through fixed mechanical connections, is now transmitted in an entirely diff ferent fashion, namely through a body of oil.
 A plain and homespun explana- tion of the Fluid Drive is one given by the Dodge Company's Vice President and director of sales, Forest H. Akers. Our Fluid Drive, says MT. Akers, lis mounted be- tween the crankshaft and the clutch, where it takes the place of the conventional flywheel. The installation is one of extreme sim plicity, for it consists of only two working parts-two bowl-shaped shells of steel into which series of evenly spaced blades or fins are welded.
 "One of these bowl-shaped shells is mounted-its open end facing toward the rear-of1 the end cf the engine crankshaft; it is called the driver or irnpeller; the other fluid drive part, similar in con- struction to the first one, $ mounted on the drive shaft of the car in such a way that its open end faces the iinpeller-al- most, but not quite, touching it.
 '.The two fluid drive. parts, inn peller and runner, are surrounded by tightly sealed steel housing -and this housing Is filled with two gallons of oh That is all there is, mechanically, to the Dodge fluid drive; it is, in effect. a two section power train with a gap in the center of the fluid drive unit, where oil is made the medium to carry driving energy from one sec tion of the unit to the other. 1 When the engine turns the front section of the fluid coup l ing, the rotating impeller throws l the oil by centrifugal force against the fins of the runner, which promptly turns in the same direc- tion as the irnpeller.
 i "The car, when under way, pro- ceeds much as it would move if the fluid coupling were fixed one; though it is noticeable that starting, driving and stopping are much smoother.
 "But the most useful detail in the operation of the. fluid drive is !, the manner in which the rotation speed of the runner member may differ from the speed of the i'm peller under conditions of start ing and hill-climbing. With the car in motion, the oil and the run ner of the fluid drive will travel practically together When the car slows down under conditions of heavy pulling, or in getting under way, the flow of oil against and around the fins is such as to give the fluid drive Dodge truly as- tonishing operating flexibility and control The operator of the new fluid drive Dodge has it in his power to drive, if he wishes, the way he has always driven. Or ne may do 90 percent of his normal driving with the gear shift left in high. He may stop the car without releasing the clutch pedal; he may ascend hills in high at speeds as low as one mile per hour, stopping midway on the incline, then starting again, with the gears still in high He may negotiate the busiest city traffic without doing any gear shifting and, therefore, without experiencing the fatigue which formerly was an &C., cepted feature of city driving