i was wondering what acutall damage you are doing when u miss a shift from like first to second or whatever and you feel the whole shift send a vibration through your arm and u here that vvvvverrrrrrrrr noise. it happens 2 me at least once i day cuz my shifter is so knotchy.

 

You need to slow down shifting (be more deliberate about it), until you are better at it. It is bad though...just stop doing it.

 

grind your gears and shiznits. hey hows the handling now?

 

it seems to be a bit softer, or mabey im gettin used to it.... it is stiff which is good i high speeds i guess.... thanks

 

Make sure the clutch is FULLY depressed before you even start to move the shift lever and leave it all the way down until you have shifted FULLY into the next gear. Try to keep grinding down to once or twice a month, not once or twice a day.

 

what i try to do (since i am still fairly new to 5 spd's) is when i am shifting from 2nd to 3rd, i move the stick into the neutral position and let it move into the middle. then all you have to do is push it straight forward to get into 3rd. imho the shift from 2nd to third is probably the trickiest because the other shifts are straight up and down (except 4th to 5th i guess )

 

2nd to 3rd is easy! Put your hand with your palm facing the front of the car and your fingers pointing to the passenger side. Then just push straight forward. The angle of your hand/arm and the little spring in the shifting mechanism will pull the shifter into the central neutral position like butter, and then it's straight on up to 3rd. Try it, much much better than pistol-gripping 2nd to 3rd!

The hardest shift by far is 4th to 5th because you have that same spring working against you instead of with you. But that's OK because you will never need to do a fast 4-5 upshift.

 

haha thats what i meant you just worded it a lot better than me

 

You're not actually grinding the gears, you're grinding the purple collars in the image below. Nonetheless, not good for your tranny.



On a side note.

Something handy I learned while learning to drive my 5 speed is to not let your foot off the clutch pedal.

I used to push the pedal down, shift and letting it pop up on it's own. By keeping my foot on it and raising the pedal by raising my foot (instead of on it's own), my shifts got much smoother. Can't even feel anything now when shifting through all 5 gears.

Also, to save gas, I skip certain gears at times. Like on flat ground I take off in 1st up to 2500-3000 RPM's, then to 3rd up the same RPM's then to 5th. On a downgrade, I can start on 2nd and then go to 5th. No need for all the gears unless on an uphill or merging onto a highway. Perfectly fine for normal city driving. I get an extra 20-30 miles per tank full.

 

wow i love that picture i never actually knew how a tranny worked and often wondered about it

 

You should read the entire howstuffworks.com entry on manual transmissions. Very important to understand. If you don't know about the layshaft AKA intermediate shaft, you will never understand your car and have no hope at understanding double clutching.

 

Practice, is the key.

Do you mean miss a shift life instead of going from 1st to 2nd you go to 4th by accident? if this is what you mean then its not good on your internals, you'll get used to it in time. After a while it will just be second nature.

But from time to time (rarely) I accidentally when in forth shift down to 3rd thinking its 5th and I feel it

 

Just curious, do you guys go directly from 1st to 2nd(one motion) or 1st-neutral-2nd? I do the former cause the latter took longer and the rmp will fall too low and I have to tap on the gas to bring it up for a smooth upshift. What's the textbook 1-2 shift?

 

gotta luv my auto cant wait to install a shift kit on the auto

 

1st straight to 2nd... no need to pause, the quicker you shift and release the clutch the better.

And like I mentioned before, if you like, you can go from 1st to 3rd to 5th or whatever order suits your needs. And no need to pause in neutral position.

 

i heard this was bad for the tranny... ionno someone wanna help me out here?

 

hhaha no its fine. You dont need to pause in the neutral position. And yes, its fine to shift from 1st to 5th or 3rd or anywhere. And the less time the clutch is actually making contact the less wear on it = longer it will last - thats not to say just dump the clutch but "slipping" it will increase wear and decrease clutch life.

 

As long as you rev match/double clutch you can shift from 1st directly to 5th and back again and the tranny will love it.

 

Very true. However, if you are so afraid of slipping the clutch that you routinely do jerky starts and shifts, you are putting unnecessary wear on the entire drivetrain (and yourself and any passengers). The entire purpose of the clutch is to slip! It is designed to slip. Replacing the clutch is easy and relatively cheaper than engine/tranny work.

 

i've only grinded my gears 4 times since i got the car 3 years ago..

 

That is the most ridiculous thing I have read in this forum for a long time. Who taught you to drive a stick?

 

That noise you're hearing is your syncros trying like hell to reach equilibrium.

 

I dont really know a whole lot of transmissions, kinda like a black box to me. I do however hear "double clutching" thrown around by a lot of people, some of whom I'm sure dont know what it means. Someone want to briefly explain it for me?

Edit: I found the answer. In double-clutching, you first push the clutch pedal in once to disengage the engine from the transmission. This takes the pressure off the dog teeth so you can move the collar into neutral. Then you release the clutch pedal and rev the engine to the "right speed." The right speed is the rpm value at which the engine should be running in the next gear. The idea is to get the blue gear of the next gear and the collar rotating at the same speed so that the dog teeth can engage. Then you push the clutch pedal in again and lock the collar into the new gear. At every gear change you have to press and release the clutch twice, hence the name "double-clutching."

Is this necessary for our cars?

Edit again: This is the prime example of reading before you ask.....
Manual transmissions in modern passenger cars use synchronizers to eliminate the need for double-clutching.

This is very interesting. Anyone uncertain should DEFINITELY read this http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission.htm

 

Hmm, maybe I'm wording it funny.

It's not like I'm easying the clutch pedal up slowly, I'm still letting the clutch up relatively quickly but my foot is always in contact with the pedal instead of pushing it down, shifting and just letting it POP up on it's own.

 

thats how my friend drives his 240, and compared to my letting it pop, besides for his loud *** SP, i would never know he shifted, me on the other hand, isnt as good

 

Uh, I think he was saying it was ridiculous that you originally believed that you were just supposed to let go and let the clutch pedal pop up on its own versus the obvious right way to do it, which is letting up with your foot on the pedal in a controlled manner.

 

Well, considering this is my first stick shift car and that I've been my own teacher for the most part, this was definitely not that obvious to me and thought someone new to manual transmissions might find it useful.

I've got the hang of it now, I love my 5 speed. :shift: I remember the first few weeks I used to think I was gonna give myself whiplash.

 

Droping the clutch on every shift

 

Wrong. Let's say you're trying to pass a car on a two-lane highway. Try a downshift from 5th to 3rd or 2nd at 50 or 60 MPH without double-clutching. Your synchros will hate you and will protest brutally. Synchronizers can only adjust a certain amount. A 5-4 downshift is no problem, just single clutch and optionally rev match. If you don't rev match, the synchros will do the entire job of speeding up the engine and layshaft to match the new gear ratio. But for more extreme differentials you really NEED to double clutch. (Another example: coming into a turn at 40 MPH and slowing fast, taking it at say 20MPH so you want to shift into 1st to have maximum acceleration when you exit the turn.)

This might help some of you understand why and when double clutching is called for:

Downshifting:

1. 5th/4th at 50 MPH = 2000/2400 RPM
2. 5th/3rd at 50 MPH = 2000/3200 RPM
3. 5th/2nd at 50 MPH = 2000/4660 RPM

1. 400 RPM differential (+loss of engine RPM after letting up gas before shift, so it's quite a bit more than 400 PM; the faster you shift the less the synchros have to work). Easy for synchros to compensate. Use technique A or B. C is overkill.

2. 1200 RPM differential (+loss of engine RPM). Hard for synchros to compensate. A is possible but rough on synchros. Use B or C.

3. 2660 RPM differential (+loss of engine RPM). More than doubling the RPM. Pretty much impossible for synchros to compensate. If you try A, you won't be able to push the shifter into 2nd and you will hear the synchros whining and feel them through the shifter. B is possible but rough on synchros. Use C.

Clutching:

A. Single clutch, no rev match: synchros have to adjust both engine speed and layshaft speed to match driveshaft speed (which is directly related to the speed the wheels are moving)

B. Single clutch, rev match*: synchros only have to adjust layshaft speed to match driveshaft speed. (Note that the layshaft is has much less inertia than the engine)

C. Double clutch, rev match†: synchros don't have to do a thing if you match perfectly. In other words, your deft, well-timed maneuvering of the gas, clutch, and shifter is what is adjusting the engine speed and layshaft speed to match driveshaft speed. Result: fluid, smooth shift that is easy on the car, your body, and your mind.

* "Rev matching" while single clutching means giving it gas while the clutch is depressed, while changing gears

† "Rev matching" while double clutching means clutch in, shift to neutral, clutch out, give gas to rev both engine and layshaft (because they're connected by the clutch), clutch in, shift to gear, clutch out.


In conclusion, when you read that double-clutching is not necessary on modern cars with synchronizer-mesh trannies, they are right, but only if you drive like a granny. Also, many semis and large trucks require double clutching, even when upshifting (I think...). No car with synchros would ever require double clutching on an upshift (passive rev matching, where the engine and layshaft drop to the proper RPMs for the next gear on their own, is perfect), so in that sense they're right.

If you really want to harness the full potential of the stick shift, learn to double clutch.

 

Awesome, more stuff to learn and more reasons to love a stick shift over an auto.

Nice post.

 

THANKYOU!!! That is why I post here!!! I have always been very good with cars. I work for my dads car dealership, but all I work on is engines. It is very nice to learn more about cars, especially the tranny since I know virtually nothing about them. This explains a lot since I know exactly what VQuick is talking about. I almost feel as if I have to learn to drive a stick all over again. Always a new challenge!!!! Thanks!

 

Hmm...I've never had the need to double-clutch on a 5-3 shift. The layshaft spins up rather quickly and easily...the syncros are more than capable of handling this. Is it *better* to double clutch? Sure. Is it *necessary*? I don't think so.

As for the trucks, they usually don't have syncros at all...which is why they're a PIA to drive!

 

Point taken. I just don't like pushing the synchros and I enjoy double clutching anyway. And it might even save time because you'd have to ease into 3rd from 5th to give the synchros time to catch up.

BTW, sryth, I used that old post of yours with the table of RPMs/MPHS/gears to come up with those numbers. Thanks.

 

No problem...glad I could help!

 

A while back, there were these virtual driving lessons taught by some M5 guy, showing different techniques of stick shifting, etc.
http://www.vidload.de/script/kategor...&sort=filename and said that double clutching was unnecessary due to our modern day synchros being so good, and that a single clutch/rev match shift is all that is needed.

edit: just read the last part again, and driving like a granny is kind of misleading -- with a single clutch rev matched shift, it is accomplishing the same thing. I don't know...it's another greatly debated topic in cars I guess...

 

Those M5 videos are here:

http://www.standardshift.com/videos.html

And the guy has a separate lesson for double clutching, so even though he may say it's not necessary, he clearly thinks it's worthy enough of a lesson in stick school!

Everyone should watch it. Watch how lightning-quick he is with the clutch pedal!

 

good description mang, ima go try it out

 

did you really have to go back and find this thread just to say that one line?

 

Especially quoting my entire message...unnecessary mang!

 

I thought you were never supposed to shift back into 1st unless you came to a stop or damn near stopped!