Video: Let GM Show You How a Differential Works....From 1937

This is excellent. Great find, I hope others find more.

I think this went around a few years ago. It's still cool.

That was fantastic! Of course those wild stunts really ratcheted up the excitement level as well.

Yes, it did kevm14. I think Autoblog did a blog entry on it that led me to it.

This is definitely an oldie but goodie!

This is a truly excellent video that explains and demonstrates differentials in a way that most any layman could understand, but doesn't dumb it down for people with engineering or automotive expertise.

This needs to be required viewing for any gear-head.

I remember going to a Drift Day and trying to explain why it was very difficult to keep the ass-end of my car hung out. I told the instructor it was because my car has a Helical (aka Torsen) differential.

The guy looked at me with a confused expression and asked, "What's a Helical Differential? Is that an open or a 2-way?"

That's like a plumber not knowing what a Pipe Wrench-is.

I stopped going to Drift Days soon after that.

Awesome video. Now where's the one about limited-slip differentials?

Autoblog posted this about a year ago and it received a lot of kudos. Ever since, they've been trying to find other videos that are as good, but to no avail. There's gotta be more like this out there.

Fun video. Promotional, yes, but educational and creative. Kids watching this video probably wanted to go build stuff and make things work! It begs comparision with today's attitudes.

There's a bunch of Jam Handy films at archive.org. Do a search on Handy Jam Organization. Lots of Chevy centric ones, but few are technical like the differential one.

This video has been in my Youtube favorites for the last year or so and I never get bored watching it.

I love watching this.

I believe that the company I worked for (43 years) invented the offset axle. The Gleason Works was founded in 1865. The company originally just made gears, but eventually began making machines that cut gear teeth.

My father also worked at Gleason, from the early 30s to his death in 1962. I "carried the torch" when I joined Gleason in1960 and retired in 2004.

My job was designing arbors and chucks to hold all kinds of gears while the gears were being cut or tested.

I had never seen this video before. Fascinating is an understatement.

Brilliant. Showed this to my SO and in 5 minutes she understood completely how a differential works and was even able to infer the function of the limited slip in our Tahoe based upon the models presented.