11 thoughts on “Primer: Shifting gear and multiplication of torque.

    • I peruse a lot of web sites to find material and pictures and that leads to a lot of rabbit holes and on one I found all these mechanical diagrams for old high school shop classes and are called primers to teach basic automotive ideas and hardware and parts and how different functions interact for automobiles and mechanical devices and I have been doing it for awhile and every once will post one. A lot of the gear-heads on here already know. It is for the people that come on here and didn’t know how say a manual transmission works, or brakes work sort of thing and it seems to be popular. Us older guys had these back when we took shop classes.

      • I never had Auto Shop as a kid – by the time I got to the “correct” grade I was already dismantling small engines and was learning V8’s and how all the monkey motion worked together.
        Then I would go out to the drag strip and blow it apart. Good times!
        The car electrical systems were easy because I was into TV repair by the time I learned car electrical systems.

  1. By the time I took auto shop, I had already been actively involved in rebuilding several MOPAR engines, a Ford 289 and 219, replacing clutches and throw out bearings, and rebuilding a transmission for a Datsun 1600.

    So imagine my disinterest in demonstrating to the laid off aerospace worker cum teacher the various parts of a hydrauluc lifter and how to assemble. And next, be still my heart, the rebuilding of an alternator.

      • Heck, I remember rebuilding generators before I did alternators!
        Had to do one on my ’57 four-door hardtop out in -45 degree weather in wonderful warm North Dakota in ’75 – the brushes had worn out! Took me 5 hours to remove it, 30 minutes to fix it, and another 6 hours to re-install it. I did not have a garage to work in. Those were the days…
        Cost $1.50 for the brushes!

  2. Ever heard of a twin countershaft transmission? The concept is absolutely brilliant. The main shaft literally ‘floats’ between the two countershafts, with zero thrust being placed sideways on the main shaft and the thrust on the countershafts is shared between the two of them. They are as bulletproof as a transmission can get.

      • I tried to find a good internet source, or you tube video showing and explaining how they work but there just aren’t any good ones that I could recommend. It might help to know that virtually all modern Spicer and Fuller big truck transmissions are of twin countershaft design.

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