[POWERSTROKE]

A " BROWNIE" is an auxiliary transmission behind the 4 or 5-speed that gives 3 or 4 splits of each gear.

The '66 White ready-mix truck I drove summer of '76 had a 5+4, and the 4 was a Brownie with really close spaced ratios. The '74 Diamond REO mixer I drove summer of '75 had a 5-speed Allison A/T and 3-speed Brownie, a 2:1 reduction, maybe just a bit lower, used for creeping around on soft work sites, then Direct, 1:1 for most driving while loaded to 50,000-52,000#, and an Overdrive, .8:1, for running home empty, and running to distant pours if the roads were level enough. Hills, loaded, and Overdrive didn't work well. I always shifted the Brownie into O/D while moving, run up to maximum speed in 5th direct, shift the A/T to neutral, shift the aux. to neutral a split second, then into O/D, then slap the A/T back into 5th. My Buddy drove that truck summer of '77, said it was the only truck of the five Reo's the company had you couldn 't shift on-the-fly just by backing off the gas pedal, that just seemed potentially too hard on parts if you mis-timed the shift to O/D.