Guitylerham

Is it hard on teh transmission to slip into neutral without using the clutch? I know you don't want your engine reving up as you do it because it takes all the load off of a spinning motor. But what about coming to a stop , can you just tap it into neutral? Also, I've heard about double clutching being helpful but is that just for special transmissions? Seems kinda cumbersome.

Norm Peterson

As long as you take the load off the gears (synchros, actually) it'll practically "fall" into neutral. If it feels like it's dragging a bit, there's still some load there.

But I don't think this is a particularly great habit to get into for an entirely different reason - in the event that you need to get it back into gear in a bit of a hurry (if it starts to look like the guy behind you isn't going to get stopped in time, as one example) you're half a step late before you move a muscle. Once you're stopped, and the guy behind you is, you have a little more freedom to idle in neutral.


That's an advanced manual transmission technique that isn't absolutely required for most street driving. But it is easier on the synchros, especially for downshifts, where you need to increase the engine revs to where they will have to be in the lower gear. Plus, you'll be far less likely to give everybody a front-to-back head-snap. Once in a while, in cold weather, you might not get an upshift to work cleanly without kicking the gas as you go through the neutral gate to get the gears up to speed (thick gear oil messes with gear speed and the time it takes to get things to mesh). Even that works better with the clutch engaged when you give it that little rev "kick".

Practice makes this pretty easy, too, and it lets you downshift into a lower gear before you make those 90° turns onto neighborhood side streets instead of after (when 4th or higher is clearlythe wrong gear to be in) or during the turn (when you're already busy with other tasks).


Norm