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Tractor Talk Discussion Forum

Johnson Bar

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Don Ingram

03-24-2006 15:13:54




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Can anyone tell me the origin of the term "Johnson Bar" for the forward-reverse shifter used on older manual shift transmissions.




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Mark

03-24-2006 16:40:41




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 Re: Johnson Bar in reply to Don Ingram, 03-24-2006 15:13:54  
nballen told you right...it was part of the reverser gear on a steam engine and some of those engines had a real big lever mounted on the floor in front of the engineer...hence the term, a 'Big Johnson'. I spent 27 years a railroad engineer and worked with a bunch of old steam men when I first started back in the 70's....they'd often call the reverser on a diesel a 'Johnson'.



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nballen

03-24-2006 15:48:42




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 Re: Johnson Bar in reply to Don Ingram, 03-24-2006 15:13:54  
The term "Johnson Bar" dates back to the steam locomotive era (back to early 1800"s?) as this was the lever that changed the steam timing mechanism to reverse the locomotive direction.

Try google or yahoo or similar with "Johnson Bar"

HTH.



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wild willie

03-24-2006 15:35:47




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 Re: Johnson Bar in reply to Don Ingram, 03-24-2006 15:13:54  
Don
The old 30"s & 40"s Chevy trucks had a lever to shift the 2 speed axle,called a johnson bar.HTH Bill



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mjbrown

03-24-2006 15:17:32




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 Re: Johnson Bar in reply to Don Ingram, 03-24-2006 15:13:54  
I don't know the origin but I've heard it used to describe a bar in a light plane used to manually retract the landing gear.



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