Shifting Gears Without Clutch

Its a method similar to double de clutching.

it takes time to get it right but as you say its only the pulling away and stopping thats a problem.

once moving pull gear lever out of first rev engine slightly and put slight pressure on gear lever towards 2nd when engine speed matches gears moving in gear box the lever will allow second to be selected.

The only damaged is the baulking rings may wear down a bit faster, They are there to assist in meshing the gears

In my experience, peter7g is exactly correct. GA

As a kid on the ranch, I often drove one of the varied utility trucks from here to there, and was taught early to 'match the rev's, and keep yer foot off'n thet clutch' by the grizzled "Crazy Pierre". After pestering him several times (he felt it beneath his stature to share anything to a kid) he did explain it kept wear and tear off the pilot bearing, throwout, pressure plate... This all long before synchro-mesh transmission.

Its a handy skill to aquire if the clutch cable fails,

Absolutely a good thing to practice before you lose the clutch cable. I drove home over 10 miles away on surface streets with stop lights and all with my '87 Jetta when a small lever arm in the tranny split at the spline. I thought the cable broke but discovered the clutch lever failure later. At any rate, the car was happiest when I would crank it over in 2nd gear instead of first when pulling away from a stop. In first gear, it bucked something awful at start-up. Another important thing is also how to touch the accelarator just enough to "unload" the gearsets so it's easier to pull out of gear when slowing for a stop. I wouldn't try parallel parking but I could just about drive it "normally" for most other things.

Many years ago, my older brother taught me how to clutch-less shift his dump truck with the 5-speed manual and the split ratio rear-end.

We had a Vauxhall Viva years ago. It ate clutch cables.

When the cable broke we would stop the engine at a light and use the starter with first gear to get moving then carefully shift without clutch for the rest of the run. Great to get home to repair it for the n'th time. (The Viva was a piece of c--p.)

once moving pull gear lever out of first rev engine slightly and put slight pressure on gear lever towards 2nd when engine speed matches gears moving in gear box the lever will allow second to be selected.

Don't rev from 1 to 2 (or any upshift). Ease off throttle to allow effortless disengagement of lower gear. Allow revs to continue to drop until matched for next gear, and slip into next gear. Engagement is effortless, and does not wear the synchros. If pressure is required, the synchros are working too hard.

Fun for demo. Stupid for routine use. Only true race style crash boxes (no synchros) shift faster without the clutch than with.

I don't think anyone said anything about speed-shifting, though. I do it to save the clutch and clutch parts (yes, I do know that the clutch, when being used to change gears on the fly, does not slip, and thus suffers minimal, if any, wear. But throw-out forks and bearings, along with the pivots for the fork, do suffer, and I tend to run cars well over 300,000 miles, so I would like those hard to replace parts to last as long as possible). I drove school buses cross-country for years, and found that I could save on both fuel and repair costs by using this method. It pushed one to a more thoughtful mode of driving, which, even in a big lumbering school bus can be helpful. It certainly makes for a smoother ride for your passengers, regardless of the size of the vehicle.

In addition, you CAN down-shift this way. A slight revving of the engine will allow you to match the gears on the down-shift also. And I got good enough at it before to do it without anyone even realizing I had. It isn't hard. It just requires a sensitive foot, planning, and thinking ahead.

I don't think anyone said anything about speed-shifting, though.

See post 10.

In addition, you CAN down-shift this way.

Of course. Peter had it backwards -- revs up for downshift, down for upshift.

It just requires a sensitive foot, planning, and thinking ahead.

Unfortunately, that leaves out 99.9% of drivers.

Thanks. I went back and re-read 10. I'm afraid I still don't see reference to "speed-shifting" (a la drag racing shifts). I DO see reference to up- and down-shifting smoothly. But after all, if you can't shift smoothly without the clutch, why do it without the clutch, since that is one thing clutches are engineered to do?

Sorry, my english does not translate well to American. When smeaton wrote "luckily it was a light car and broke traction easily and it was faster with that change" in English English that would mean that the change (the shift) was faster than the change when using the clutch. Where I am, a rally is a type of competition, in which fast shifts are an advantage. Here, we sometimes call such shifts, banged from gear to gear, with no clutch, "speed shifts." In your land there may be another meaning.

In practice, these shifts are often not used in racing, as many racers, when racing cars that have synchronizers, use the clutch on shifts, because the synchros will not let the next gear engage quickly enough while they are trying to slow the whole engine to the match speed. With clutch disengaged, only the input shaft (and stuff attached) has to be slowed. Obviously, on cars (like the the Mazda race car for which I have a worn $300US shift dog on my desk -- they last a month or so) which have crash boxes (no synchros, just shift dogs, like a motorcycle) upshifts are always faster without clutch use: push button, engine stutters, bang, next gear is engaged. No throttle lift required.

Many other racers race cars in which not just one but two clutches are routinely used: many F1 cars, Porsches, etc etc.

Sorry for the confusion. American English is hard, we have to think: does tire means exhaustion or something of rubber, which we write tyre. Our bonnet is your hood. When we think hood, we sometime think of anatomy.

MB:

I knew of many of the differences, and suspected that when I said speed shift (we also call that bang-shifting) you would NOT think first of Drag-Racing (straight line contest of acceleration, indigenous to America. I understand its been picked up in other countries, including the UK, but not nearly to the level of popularity it has here, where F1 and other road type racing is rare, and auto-cross, which is what we call rallying, almost doesn't exist), but when we talk about speed shifting it is almost always in that brutal straight line sport, where the object is to get the currently running piece of automotive mess to the other end of the straight as quickly as possible, and, for the most part, don't worry if it hangs together, since you'll rebuild it a dozen times in a weekend anyway.

As far as our auto hood goes, I knew about your term "bonnet" but is it polite to ask what you might refer to as a hood? I had no idea it might be a term for an anatomical part.

Wut he said. But I think he dryves on the wrong side of the road, so everything is relatyve.

this description may help you understand how the clucth works you might want to turn sound down on some of these demos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BaECAbapRg&feature=channel

gear box

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-3SqMsgVdI&feature=related

Believe it or not, My clutch shaft broke one night as I got off work. Started car depressed clutch bang.

Shut car off. pulled into first, engagaed starter and drove away. It was late at night so I could time the stoplights well enough that I only had to stop and start a couple of times in the 5 mile drive.

It can be done.

yes you have to careful when coming to a stop, If you forget it can be disastrous,

a friend of mine who worked for a beak down company made the mistake of telling a women driver ( i say woman not person because she was a woman) how to drive her car without the clutch

she begged him to tell her how to do it ( she had seen him drive the car from the traffic lights to the side of the road and safety.

he told her, she drove home some 120 miles went up her drive and straight out the back of garage, She even had the gall to blame my mate for telling how to drive clutch-less

I did look at the website explaining how the clutch worked and noticed they didn't explain the purpose of the torsion springs on the clutch disc. They are supposed to absorb the torque when the clutch is used properly when shifting gears. I have seen where the center core of the clutch disc was torn right out of the disc itself . This is one of those cooky things that can happen if the clutch is not used when pulling a heavy load. There are lots of car and truck drivers that do not use the clutch after getting started and they have no problems. I must agree with the points put forth in the previous posts, it is a good thing to know in the event your clutch system becomes disconnected for whatever reason.

h

Yes i too have seen the centre ripped out caused by sudden acceleration, iv also seen a few gear boxes split in two, Caused by the younger generation doing wheelies,

It is pretty silly doing this when it is not an emergency. Even if you are good at getting the revs right you are loading the drivetrain, engine mounts etc heavily. Expect something to give soon, a CV joint, engine mount or the synchro. If it is a front wheel drive car then there is a torque limiter built-in (break traction), rear wheel drive cars have a higher torque setting.

I have driven a number of times without clutch, when the cable has broken.

I can not say nothing! If you do clutchless gearchanging there is NO more wear on anything...IF YOU KNOW HOW! Actually , less wear because of not using the clutch.

I have driven many vehicles clutcles...even "crash boxes" like old tractors an a 1928 Ford .

It is just easier to use the clutch if you are not used to drive "clutch-less".

As a matter of interrest: Cover the clutch linings with graphite if you replace it and it will work smoother.

Jurie sa

Shifting up or down without the clutch is made effortless when the neither the engine nor the car are loading the gears, such as on a "trailing throttle"

If the the gears are seeing a load, then you can usually anticipate the gears clashing, with or without synchronizers (Or Balk Rings as Porsche liked to call them).

If you think about the purpose of a clutch, to interrupt the power, then it's not difficult to understand what we must do to perform a clutchless shift.

In time, one gets to know intuitively how many rpm's the engine will gain or loose shifting down or up in a familiar car. If one "gooses" the throttle some on a downshift and times the rpm properly, the gear lever will slip into gear without notice.

My MG-A and either earlier variants used solid carbon blocks as throwout bearings. God bless the Brits! If you drove a lot in urban congestion with a carbon TO bearing you were lucky to get 10,000 before a clutch job. God Bless Studebaker-Packard.

There was a no-mod bolt on Borg-Warner replacement for a Studebaker; the driven disk, the pressure plate and a sealed tapered roller bearing throwout. When people called me to complain about their noisy throwout bearing, I'd tell them how to shift until I got the car.

L.J.

The car I had was a Fiat 127 that had Porsche baulk rings. I had a friend with one too who used to rally and he showed me his "no throttle off-no clutch" gear change - no mechanical sympathy - luckily it was a light car and broke traction easily and it was faster with that change.

With over a million miles in the past 15 years(5 of those not professionally driving) I learned this is the best way to drive many commercial vehicles. With little practice the shift is most often smoother than clutched. As long as your acceleration is smooth, the tranny will never know the clutch wasn't used.

In a small pick-up truck with a hydraulic clutch I had to attempt this and it proved more difficult because of fewer gears and higher rpm range on the engine. Doable, but not the best in the Appalachians with an overloaded 4 cylinder vehicle.

1. Ease your foot off the accelerator pedal while applying gentle pressure to the shifter towards neutral.
2. As the shifter moves out of gate, GENTLY allow it to "fall" into the next gate. If you movement is slow as it enters, you may spin the syncs and grind the gears.
3. Once the shifter is fully into the gate, accelerate in a slow, smooth application of the pedal.

OK, that is a slo-mo description of how I figured it out. I have never required transmission work due to my failure in operation. (except a series of automatics that couldn't survive the motor mods in an old 442 )

Too many years ago to count, I left home on a 200 mile trip in my '74 MG Midget. I wasn't a mile or two down the road when the clutch slave cylinder blew its seal. I drove the rest of the trip (and back) with no clutch.

The only problem I had was a toll booth midway in the trip. I'd pay the toll, shut the engine down, put the tranny in 1st, and hit the starter. One or two neck jarring bucks and I'd be on my way.

Oh, and I knew that car so well I could (way too frequently) pull the engine and tranny and replace the (carbon - thanks, Laughing Jaguar ) throwout bearing in about 2 hours.

Hooker

Is this possible on any vehicle?

It's something I would expect my Dad to do and taught me to do when I was learning to drive and he never did it. I have an uncle that was a truck driver and he didn't do it either. My Dad and Uncles were all mechanical buffs, if it had wheels they could drive it.

it can be done on all vehicles with clutches but as there really is no need except in an emergency.

It can take a while to pick it up and while you are learning you may damage the gear box

And if you have never had a clutch go on you why would you know about it.

it can be done on all vehicles with clutches

This is a good example. I have often said "avoid using 'allness' words such as all, always, never, etc." since there are, often unknown, exceptions.

My 1925 Seagrave has a standard 3-speed crash box tranny--but you cannot shift without the clutch because it has an interlock that prevents it. Therefore "all" is not true. With my 1921 American-LaFrance, shifting without the clutch was easiest because the clutch spring (yes, only one spring) was so stiff.

gee thanks for that so missed out a vehicle Ive never heard of. is it in a museum ?

so do put in all my posts from now ambiguous words to allow for strange one offs

My brother's Dodge charger (~1968) had a clutch interlock. I left it off when I replaced his clutch and discovered why it had the interlock. Under high acceleration, it would pop out of gear. Because that is the only way he drove the car and why the clutch failed in the first place, I had to install the interlock for him.

http://www.lafire.com/fire_apparatus/TouristFireEngines_Burnham/TouristFireEngines_Burnham.htm

i would think it had the interlock as a safety feature possibly to stop it being put into gear while stationary and pumping.

And if so its not an original part but fitted later.

the same sort of lock outs are fitted to refuse lorries so when PTO is engaged you cant drive off with PTO engaged Although i have come accross some lorries where you could.

If it's not grinding, it's not hurtin! I drove my '80 Supra for a few weeks in College without a clutch pedal (blew the master cylinder). That's when I discovered syncronizing the gears. Shifting up is fairly easy, just need good timing and a good ear. Down shifting takes a bit of skill though.

I alway tried to leave the car on a bit of a hill to start it, or I would push it and then jump in also the saftey switch didn't work so I could start the motor in first gear! LOL

Fun times and still do it from time to time for fun and practice!

fun AND PRACTICE ... And that's as good a reason to do it as I ever heard. I can't tell you how many times an esoteric (as in "No one needs to do that, so why are you trying? Are you stupid, or what?") skill has saved my bacon, not mention that of a lot of the people who asked those parenthetical questions above. Keep up the good practice, and have fun being weird. It helps to be weirder than the vehicle, when the vehicle (or whatever other complex system you are dealing with) quits being normal.

Speaking of normal, my wife often says to me "Normal is just a setting on my drier. And You AREN'T ON my drier!"

So stay off the drier, and keep practicing. And have fun doing it, no matter what anyone says.