did you know you can shift w/o ever touching the clutch?
Posted: March 25th, 2005, 5:45 pm
it's a pretty cool trick... my mechanic showed me how to do it... maybe i've just been left ignorant of this and this is a very common little trick that everyone knows how to do, but i never even knew it was possible until my mechanic drove my car w/ me in it---and to my surprise, HE WASN'T USING THE CLUTCH! the reason i never even thought it possible in the first place was because i had no real knowledge about transmissions.... i still really don't know everything about transmissions, but at least i know how they work now.... maybe some one can shed more light on this subject than i can... i could be wrong, but i think it has a similar idea behind it as "double-clutching", except w/o hitting the clutch once, let alone twice...
i'll try to explain how all this is possible and how to do it (to the best of my knowledge)... but correct me if i'm wrong, because i'm not claiming to know everything by any measure--just simply sharing... also, i haven't really got the trick down pat yet, so maybe i have major misconceptions:
basically, let's say u're driving along in, let's say, 4th gear cruisin' along at 4,000 RPM's... u would then proceed to knock the shift knob into the neutral position... after u've done this, u've allowed the engine's RPM's to fall, while the output shaft from the transmission is still spinning fast (as evident from the wheels still spinning--the car's still coasting!)... the next step would be to rev the car up to the same RPM's as the output shaft at the transmission, so that the collar can mesh with 5th 'freewheeling' gear still being spun by the layshaft (the layshaft is still spinning since we're doing all this w/o touching the clutch)
the next part is the tricky part... having a good knowledge of the gear ratio's will aid the driver in estimating the engine RPM range to aim for (i personally have no idea what the gear ratios are for the mx-3, because my mx-3 is automatic, and my nissan is the stick)... what u're aiming for is to get the engine and tranny's output shaft spinning at the same rate... since a 1:1 ratio is common for the fourth gear, we'll just use that for the sake of ease...
because the rpm's fall as soon as the tranny pops out of 4th gear into neutral, we need to rev up the engine... if when u popped the tranny out of 4th gear u were goin along at 4,000 rpm's, you would just simply rev up the engine back to 4,000 rpm's and shift into 5th gear, w/o needing the clutch....
well, the reason i posted all of this was just as much for me as for anyone else, because i wanna see if my conceptions of what is happening inside the tranny is REALLY what's happening...
thanks
i'll try to explain how all this is possible and how to do it (to the best of my knowledge)... but correct me if i'm wrong, because i'm not claiming to know everything by any measure--just simply sharing... also, i haven't really got the trick down pat yet, so maybe i have major misconceptions:
basically, let's say u're driving along in, let's say, 4th gear cruisin' along at 4,000 RPM's... u would then proceed to knock the shift knob into the neutral position... after u've done this, u've allowed the engine's RPM's to fall, while the output shaft from the transmission is still spinning fast (as evident from the wheels still spinning--the car's still coasting!)... the next step would be to rev the car up to the same RPM's as the output shaft at the transmission, so that the collar can mesh with 5th 'freewheeling' gear still being spun by the layshaft (the layshaft is still spinning since we're doing all this w/o touching the clutch)
the next part is the tricky part... having a good knowledge of the gear ratio's will aid the driver in estimating the engine RPM range to aim for (i personally have no idea what the gear ratios are for the mx-3, because my mx-3 is automatic, and my nissan is the stick)... what u're aiming for is to get the engine and tranny's output shaft spinning at the same rate... since a 1:1 ratio is common for the fourth gear, we'll just use that for the sake of ease...
because the rpm's fall as soon as the tranny pops out of 4th gear into neutral, we need to rev up the engine... if when u popped the tranny out of 4th gear u were goin along at 4,000 rpm's, you would just simply rev up the engine back to 4,000 rpm's and shift into 5th gear, w/o needing the clutch....
well, the reason i posted all of this was just as much for me as for anyone else, because i wanna see if my conceptions of what is happening inside the tranny is REALLY what's happening...
thanks