An educational documentary short, commissioned by the Chevrolet Motor Company, explaining a manual car transmission works.An educational documentary short, commissioned by the Chevrolet Motor Company, explaining a manual car transmission works.An educational documentary short, commissioned by the Chevrolet Motor Company, explaining a manual car transmission works.
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Inner workings of a transmission
The famous Ancient Greek scientist Archimedes said "Give me a lever long enough and I can move the world." This film, produced by Chevrolet, details how this statement pertains to a car's transmission: one of the most important parts of vehicles found on today's roads. Although you may not realize it, you likely use levers every day of your life in some form or another, and levers transfer force in such a way that they make normally very difficult tasks simple. For instance, train cars weigh a lot of tons, but railroad workers can get them rolling effortlessly using a pinch bar. The most simple kind of lever is just a bar or other long object resting on a fixed point of support (fulcrum). If one end of the lever is twice the length of the other, the latter end is able to balance the weight of 10 pounds with only 5 pounds placed on the longer end. If a heavier load needs to be balanced using less weight, the other end of the lever is made longer. A lever raised in the air (with a slightly altered appearance) is called a crank. An identical copy of this device facing the opposite direction forms the basis of a transmission. Two gears are placed on each crank. A gear is basically nothing more than an infinite, spinning set of levers. The gear on the left is bigger and turns slower, but delivers more force. When you shift gears in your car, there are two shafts opposite each other. One of them comes from the engine, and the other carries power to the back wheels. In order to connect the two shafts via gears, a third shaft is located underneath the two aforementioned ones. The countershaft has a gear on the left connected to the drive shaft via a gear on the latter, so power is able to stream into the countershaft. A gear on the drive shaft meshes with another on the right side of the countershaft, matching the arrangement the engine shaft has with its gear. These 4 gears are always in mesh when the engine is on. In order to change gears, a third (shorter) shaft is placed in between the drive and engine shafts. The clutch sleeve (as it's called) does not rotate, but can slide back and forth. On the sleeve, a gear is mounted which can move side to side in order to align itself with the small gear located on the center of the countershaft. When the car is in neutral, all gears (except the big one on the clutch sleeve) are moving. This is because in this position, the rear wheels are still. In order to start the car rolling, much more force is required, so at low speeds, the smallest gear on the countershaft turns the drive shaft's largest gear, creating more leverage. When the car is shifted into second gear, the sleeve is slid backward so it can mesh with the gear providing power to the rear wheels. At high speed, the sleeve is shifted to the opposite direction so it is connected directly to the engine shaft, meaning power from the engine is going right to the rear wheels. The countershaft has another set of gears on it so it can reverse the shaft to the rear wheels. Early transmission systems made a lot of noise due to all the gears running at different speeds, which made it basically impossible for anyone but skilled professionals to change gears without the gears clashing due to not being synchronized. Eventually, a synchronizer device is invented which works similar to a cork put into a glass bottle: the cork is turned until it's so tight, the bottle turns along with it. The synchronizer makes sure the gears are running at the same speed before coming together and making the gear change. I have to say, just like the other 30s short Chevy put out that I talked about a long time ago (I think on differential steering) I find it mind blowing that something so old can explain such a complicated feat of engineering better than most modern engineers. The short is quite entertaining for what it is and has a remarkably well animated bit at the start showing Archimedes turning the entire Earth on its axis using a lever while he stands on a distant planet. As you'll realize, levers are extremely simple but have the ability to transmit enough force to turn almost any object as long as it's big enough. Another one of those anomaly videos that no one has reviewed here, but has millions of views on Youtube.
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- nickenchuggets
- Aug 4, 2023
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- Runtime10 minutes
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