Weismann Locker
Weismann Locker
After an accident which
almost cost him his life, Al Weismann woke up in the mist of the 1929
depression. He and his partner split their Chevrolet agency . He took the cars
to Minnesota , his home state, from Chicago in the winter and promptly
burned up the differentials .
On the spot Al designed a
locking differential and build a prototype using the curtain rods of the family
living room for the rollers.
With 2 lawyers members like
him of the Knights of Colombus, he filed for a patent, and with his son started
a company aptly called Traction Products, Inc.
When they approached General
Motors Research center, they were told by a visionary: 'Why don't you test it in
a race car and come back and see us when it works."
Peter went to Indianapolis
to meet with Roger Ward, and ended up designing a clutch for him.
As he went to work for the Ford Le Mans program, he designed the locker into
both the automatic and the manual transmission .
For 7 years the Weismann
Locker gave an advantage of 3/4 of a second a lap thanks to improved traction ,
and efficiency.
With the wings and ground
effect , it lost some of its appeal.
Now it is back with a vengeance in 4wd and front-wheel drive cars
