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Gig Harbor Now and Then | Many of you guessed it: Fitzgerald Ford was our Location of Mystery

Our previous column, on March 23, featured the Gig Harbor Now and Then Historical Location of Mystery No. 1. Several readers posted guesses and positive identifications to the Gig Harbor Now Facebook page. Almost all of them were correct, beginning with the very first one, by Nick Spadoni. The Location of Mystery No. 1 is the side parking lot of Fitzgerald Ford on Pt. Fosdick Drive.

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Yes, it was Chevrolet dump trucks that paved the parking lot of the Fitzgerald Ford dealership. Top photo by Claude Spadoni. Bottom photo by Greg Spadoni.

The Now photo shows the second-growth forest behind the parking lot has been replaced by the Gig Harbor Fred Meyer store.

The parking lot the Spadoni Brothers paved for Fitzgerald Ford has been replaced by new pavement that is now part street and part parking lot for the store.

Shifting subjects

The topic of today’s essay is trucks. Not pickup trucks, but big, commercial trucks. Diesel, multi-axle, drop-axle, tall, wide, long and very heavy trucks.

Now that 99% of the readers have exited this page, it’s just you and me. So, let me ask you, one-on-one: Did you ever have even the most fleeting curiosity over whether or not you could jump into one of those big diesel trucks and drive it?

You probably haven’t, but humor me, would you? It’s the topic of the week, after all.

Whether or not you’ve ever wondered, “could just anybody drive one of those big trucks?” the answer is maybe. Today, perhaps, you could get a big truck rolling and up to speed. Forty years ago? No.

Like everything else, truck technology has vastly improved in the years since. The most significant improvement, at least from the driver’s standpoint, is in the transmissions.

Manual vs automatic

Well over half of all big trucks manufactured today have automatic transmissions. With an automatic — assuming you can figure out how to start the engine and release the spring brakes — all you have to do is put the short lever, handle, or switch on the center console in the D position, and stab the throttle (you can’t say “gas pedal” when it’s connected to a diesel engine … well, you could, but you’d sound like a goof).

Of course, it being your first time, the sheer size and immense weight of the truck would probably freak you out, but this is all just a daydream anyway.

In the olden days — meaning when I drove dump trucks for Spadoni Brothers, one of Gig Harbor’s most prominent road construction companies — none of their trucks larger than a pickup had an automatic transmission. That’s not because they weren’t available, but because the ones designed specifically for big trucks just couldn’t stand up to the severe service encountered in dump trucks. (Spadoni Brothers found that out from experience in the 1960s.)

When I went to work there, the standard arrangement for transmissions in the biggest trucks were two each, meaning every dump truck had two manual-shift transmissions, not just one. They were in tandem; a wide-ratio five speed with reverse, and a close-ratio four speed without reverse right behind it. That provided 20 forward speeds and four in reverse. Each transmission had its own shift lever.

That’s a little startling the first time you see it. But anyone who knows how to shift a manual transmission today in their car or pickup could handle that, right?

No.

People well skilled with manual transmissions today in their cars or pickup trucks would be able to get a big truck with a manual transmission rolling, but wouldn’t be able to get it out of first gear (metaphorically speaking; first gear is only one of several used to get big trucks rolling from a stop, depending on load and grade).

How could that possibly be? A clutch is a clutch.

Yes, a clutch is a clutch, but it’s not that simple. You can’t shift a manual transmission in big trucks without double-clutching. Nobody who has shifted only fully synchromesh transmissions can double-clutch. It’s a foreign concept. So foreign, in fact, that trying to explain it in print is about as close to pointless as you can get. (But watch me try.)

Stated simply, double-clutching uses either increasing engine RPM by means of working the throttle pedal, or decreasing engine RPM by means of engine compression, to match the speed of the internal gears connected to the input shaft of the transmission to the internal gears of the output shaft, depending upon whether the shift being made is a downshift or an upshift.

In either case, the RPM adjustment is made with the transmission in neutral.

Yes, I know that doesn’t really explain anything. But you have to know what all those things are doing, all at the same time, to successfully shift a manual transmission in a big truck. And that’s not even the most confusing part.

Split shifting

In most trucks with tandem transmissions (depending on the number of gears and their ratios), every third shift is a split shift. That means you have to shift both transmissions to complete the next gear change.

It also means you have to double-clutch twice.

To complicate things further, when you perform a split shift, no matter whether an upshift or a downshift, you are shifting one transmission into a lower gear and the other into a higher gear.

Are the gears in your head spinning fast enough to make sense of that?

Tandem transmissions with two shifter sticks eventually gave way to all-in-one transmissions. The reduction of two shift levers to one didn’t reduce the confusion, however.

Road Rangers

The Fuller company changed everything but the confusion with its 13-speed Road Ranger transmission. In effect, it put both transmissions in the same case, reduced the number of forward speeds from 20 to 13, and replaced the second shift lever with a three-position sliding button on the gearshift knob.

A typical 13-speed Road Ranger shift knob. The sliding button is in the direct-drive position.

The Road Ranger also reduced the number of reverse gears from four to two, although unlike with the tandem setup, you couldn’t shift between the two reverse gears while the truck was in motion — unless you cheated. (Who, me?)

Note: Second gear reverse in a Road Ranger transmission is fast!

Road Ranger transmissions are about as close to bulletproof as can be. Spadoni Brothers eventually had them in every truck, and they never failed. (Road Rangers eventually came in a variety of different speeds. Some Spadoni trucks had 13 speeds, some 10 speeds, and one was 18 speeds.)

A simple chart

In the Gear Shifting Sequence on the plate below, the gears are numbered 1 through 8. Adding low gear, plus a second speed (overdrive) in each of 5, 6, 7 and 8, equals 13 speeds.

This is the shift pattern for Spadoni Brothers’ first 13-speed Road Ranger transmission. Nothing to it, right?

A common problem

The Road Ranger transmission, like the tandem arrangement, also has to be double-clutched to change gears, every single time you move the shift lever. That leaves open the inevitability of the bane of the commercial truck driver: the missed shift.

When changing gears in a big truck, if you don’t properly match the rotational speeds of the transmission’s input shaft to its output shaft, by means of either engine compression or throttle control (depending on whether it’s an upshift or a downshift), the transmission will not go into the next gear, no matter how hard you push or pull on the shift lever. It’s then trapped in neutral, leaving the truck at the mercy of gravity. If it’s heading uphill, it slows down. If it’s going downhill, it speeds up.

Every commercial truck driver using a manual transmission misses an occasional shift. The measure of the driver’s skill is how quickly the missed gear is recovered.

In certain, rare situations it’s impossible to recover from a missed shift, and the truck has to be stopped. Then you start all over from the beginning.

I’ll end this brief spiel about split shifting and double-clutching with one more brain-twisting fact. The most experienced truck drivers use the clutch only to get the truck rolling from a dead stop. We do all the shifting — every single one a double-clutch — without actually using the clutch.

How?

Timing.

So what?

What’s all this transmission/double-clutch/split shift talk have to do with Peninsula history? It plays a key role in one of Gig Harbor’s darkest days. Our next Gig Harbor Now and Then column tells that sad tale. For now, though, we’ll move on to the question of the week.

Inconsistent appearance

The two-story brick building at 3111 Harborview Drive, in the heart of the west side business district of Gig Harbor, was originally known as the Novak building or the Novak Hotel. It was constructed in 1930 by Mabelle Forsythe, the newly remarried widow of Frank Novak, to replace the previous Novak Hotel, which burned down at the beginning of that year.

Fire also struck the new hotel, gutting the building in 1937. It was quickly rebuilt.

Something changed long after the 1937 rebuild. Today the brick on the street end of the building no longer matches the rest of the outside walls.

The Novak building in Gig Harbor. Photo by Greg Spadoni.

Question: Why does the masonry work on the Harborview Drive end not match the rest of the building?

This is probably the easiest question of local history we’ve ever had. Every long-time local knows the answer.

Next time

We’ll have the answer to this week’s unfortunately easy question on April 20. We’ll also have the tale of one of Gig Harbor’s darkest days.

— Greg Spadoni, April 6, 2026