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The trans was activated by a cable assembly. I may be wrong but I believe there is a cam type device in the shifter selector box that moves when you press the buttons. The U.S. govenment essentially killed them. They wanted all cars to have a standard shift control ( I guess for government use) and the last year was 1964. In the earlier years of the push button there was no park selection, so you had to use your parking brake.
I have pushbutton auto in my Sterling propane bobtail. Our entire fleet is mostly new Sterlings, one International. All the Sterlings are pushbutton.
I am familiar with the early 60s MoPar pushbutton autos. My Uncle Bob had one in his '63 Dodge. I would need to look into this for more details, I love the older MoPar muscle (pre-1968) but my facination begins and ends with the '68-'71 model years.
I do know that the buttons were in the '57 Plymouth Furys. We also had it in our '55 Dodge P/U.
The worst thing about them was if the button was pulled out, then you had to pull the thing apart to get it back into the right mode. Watched my Dad do it to many times after my younger Brother and Sister pulled the buttons out.
Where I work we have a Chevy and Dodge dump trucks and a Sterling Vac. Sewer truck and they all have the electronic push-button trans.
Here is the dash of a '63 Imperial with a pushbutton trans.
The controls are on the left. I think starting in '60 there was a parking lever next to the pushbuttons. You pushed the Neutral button and flipped the lever down to park. Flipped the lever up and pushed a drive button to go. This car also had a vacuum release for the emergency brake. When the lever was flipped up the brake pedal released. It was a great system, really nice not having the column shift.
Government mandate for standardization in '64 got rid of them. It was a very easy to use but I did have to explain things whenever I turned over the helm to a newbie.
I mean you push a button....what did it do? Did it activate a solenoid in trans to put it in gear?
And what years was the push button trans made?
Why was it discontinued?
I had a 1964 Dodge Dart with the push-button automatic transmission. From what I understood, they were just simple mechanical buttons, I don't think there were any electrical devices behind them.
I'm not sure when they started, but I also had a 1967 Chrysler with just a regular steering column transmission stick, so I think they must have stopped producing them either with the 1965 or 1966 model years.
As to why they were discontinued, I'm not sure.
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