"Mortimer" wrote in message
...
":Jerry:" wrote in message
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Re DAF, so did I. Wind up, wind up, wind up, go!!!!


Bloody horrid transmission, lethal in the wrong hands -
literally,
there were more than a few cases of malfunctioning (wrongly set
up)
transmissions ending up killing those trying to meddle...

How?


I know of one case were someone sitting in the car died due to a
snapped neck and another case of someone run down by the car he was
working on, the system used vacuum to active the variable cones
(thus gear ratio) and clutch, AIUI the wrong engine revs coupled to
the wrong vacuum settings could cause the car to achieve a very
much higher velocity from a standing start than normal or expected,
that could also defeat the parking brake. They were also lethal to
the local cat population who would climb into the nice warm belt
area, squished cat makes quite a mess....

So in the first case the car engaged a very low gear with high
engine revs and that achieved enough acceleration to snap the
driver's neck? That must be one hell of an acceleration!

Remember that part of the problem was the fact that it was unexpected
movement, and that older cars were not fitted with head restraints.

How come you never hear of similar cases
with manual or conventional automatic transmission if you floor the
accelerator in first?

Because of inevitable clutch slip (otherwise the engine would just
stall) together with the fact that the driver could never change up
(or down that quickly), and in the case of conventional automatic
transmission, the action of the torque-converter.


I'd thought that the belt/pulley area was sealed in a case rather
than being open to the elements. If it was open, wouldn't there also
be a problem with mud and water getting in if you went through a
ford or over muddy ground?

They were protected by plastic under-guards, the trouble was that they
were not fully encased, this allowed cooling and casual inspection,
but allowed would and pet life to gain access to a nice warn area
after the car had been used. You also have to remember that the belts
used on the DAF/Volvo 'Veriamatic' were nothing more that very wide
section rubber/fabric V belts (similar to the conventional old
fashioned fan-belt), so as long as they didn't ingest solid objects
they didn't come to much harm.


Are all cars with CVT rear-wheel drive or have they managed to fit
the belt/pulley mechanism under the bonnet alongside the engine in
modern cars with this transmission?

IIRC the first two cars to use the modern incarnation of CVT, that is
were they use an metal-lastic belt inside the gearbox, were front
wheel drive.