Hitting transbrake by mistake
 

I was wondering what would happen if you hit the transbrake button by mistake while driving in the pits? I have a butterfly steering wheel on my dragster and a micro switch transbrake button. While returning to the pits, and turning the wheel my thumb accidently hit the transbrake button. The throttle pedal started to drop toward the floor (I have an SLE on the car). The engine RPM didn't change and I quickly hit the master switch to shut the engine down. What would have happened had I not shut down immediately?

I was strapped in going through the staging lanes putting on my gloves. Our lanes curve as the get to the head of staging. I reached down with a glove in my hand to turn and accidently hit the button.
It about jerked my head off of my shoulders as the rear tires locked up. It caught me by surprise. After a second it released and I went on my way.

I've done that before too. Other than feeling like a goober, no issues.......
Johnny

One of my good friends hit the button on accident around 75mph!!! It locked the rear wheels up, Broke the whole back of the engine off and the poweglide came off with it! He skidded to a stop and was safe, just did alot of damage

How did it lock up in high gear?

I've done it several times by hitting it with my forearm while trying to turn really sharp. Mine in 4-wheel drive so it's like running into a wall when it locks down all 4 tires! Makes you look really stupid!
Trans button is also hard to hold onto it while backing up and turning a bunch.
I solved that by putting a toggle switch in line so I just flip it and back wherever I want no more problems!

Well i dont know how it happend exactly, but when it was all over he said he accidetally hit the button on the wheel with his right hand. I dont know the fluid flow , but when in high gear possible when the solenoid is engaged it redirects fluid? Maybe it locked 1st and 2nd gear on at the same time? I dunno?

Maybe some tranny guys could answer this? Is it Physically possible to stop the car with the trans by hitting the brake in second? Or did something else happen and he thought he hit the button?

I've heard of it happening before. I think it may depend on the brand of brake. I know mine will not work in high gear because it will roll through the beams if you accidently leave it in 2nd.

Does he shift into neutral at the end of a pass?

I use a th400 that coan sells called a big dog with a reverse valve body. I have had thoughts of what may happen if I accidentally activated the brake during a run because I do not use a delay box to break the circuit after activation, so the whole run is with the switch hot on the wheel. Craig, at Coan told me that there valving set up ( and I am sure most others as well) the brake activation will dump the oil pressure to the forward clutch pack and torque converter while in third gear if accidental activation occurs. He said that if under full power, you will torch the forward clutch pack with the pressure loss that the brake activation will cause. I use to turn off the power switch between the 2/3 shift back when I ran 8.00 Et quarter mile times. When I started going faster I did not have the time to turn off the switch between gear changes. Steering was more important and that is why I asked Coan (what if)
You were asking about in the pit's in first gear, well the brake works in first so if you had enough rpm in first an activated it I believe you will know why the scatter shield on the top of the trans. It will explode when the gear set comes to a sudden stop with lots of rpms in first. At a very slow speed, the gears are not going fast enough to explode like it would at the end of the 60' under full throttle if you reactivated it in a run while still in first gear.

Bruce