Manual Transmission
March 10th, 2009 bdfabregasHello there. For this entry I want to bring all the readers the wonderful of transmission system in your car. Do you get an idea what is the transmission for the car? If you don’t, I want to ask you a question. Do you know what is gear 1, gear 2 and so on? If you drive a car, you must know all this terms. That is the basic idea of transmission. So, let’s explore what is exactly the system that can connect your wheel to the engine to move at your required speed. This time, we will explore about the manual transmission first.
Every gasoline engines has their own redline. Redline is a maximum RPM value above which the engine cannot go without exploding. The transmission allows the gear ratio between the engine and the drive wheels to change as the car speeds up and slow down. The reason for shifting the gears is for the engine can stay below the redline and near the RPM of its best performance.
Firstly, we try to get an idea of the transmission system. Pictures below show the two-speed transmission in neutral position.
Green shaft and gear comes from the engine through the clutch. I will reveal about the clutch in upcoming entry. The red shaft and gear or the layshaft directly connected with the green shaft through the meshed gear. The yellow shaft is a splined shaft that connect directly to the drive shaft through the differential to the driven wheels. The blue gears ride on bearing, so the motion of the yellow shaft without using the engine did not bring the blue gears to spin also. The collar is connected directly to the yellow shaft and can slide along the yellow shaft. The purpose of the collar is to connect either of the blue gear to the yellow shaft. The dog teeth on the collar fit into holes on the sides of the blue gears to engage them.
Then, let’s explore the transmission in first gear. First, see the pictures below.
The green shaft that received the power from the engine will turn the layshaft. The layshaft will turn the blue gears. Because of the collar. only the blue gears on the right will transmit the energy to the yellow shaft. The blue gears on the left will also spin but it will have no effect in turning the yellow shaft.
Do you get the basic idea on how the transmission work from the two-speed manual transmission? If so, then let’s look at the real transmission as using in many cars in the world, the five-speed manual transmission. Below are the layout of the five-speed manual transmission.
The picture below will explain about why the H-pattern related to the shifting gears.
The forward gears quite easy to understand but how about the reverse gear? The principle is the same as the forward gear but in addition of the idler gear between the red gear and the blue gear. See the pictures below.
So, that’s all for the basic principle of the manual transmission. If you want to learn more detail about the manual transmission system, you can check my source.
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