This is only my opinion, but I think that if you are going to wait those few seconds to do this, you may as well move the tranny into neutral, let the clutch out. This will for sure allow the input side of the tranny to slow down with the engine. At this point, I think it would be much safer to shift into the higher gears. Guaranteed safe and foolproof? I'm not sticking my neck out that far.

 

Quick question for Woodwork or anyone else:

I tend to double clutch downshifting into first, with the shifter held in between 1st & 2nd gear (pushing left against the spring action), instead of shifting to the Neutral position. Is this a bad habit?

 

Woodwork,

Thanks for the pictures and information. Interesting.


Dave,

I believe I suffered from that same failure mode you're describing when I lost 5th gear for a few hours once. I never skip shift.

Ted

 

I believe that is still considered neutral. You are only holding against the centering spring and there are no gears engaged so = neutral. Depending on what your doing it may be bad, for instance if your braking are you unconsciously holding yourself upright and putting some pressure onto the synchros? I would think it's a better practice to keep your hands off the stick unless shifting (I promise I'm not trying to sound like your mother ).

 

So would a light weight flywheel help to reduce this problem with 5/6 syncros?

 

I don't see how a LW flywheel would have any effect on the tranny, since it isn't even connected to the tranny when the clutch is disengaged.

 

Okay, conceptually I understand the concept of synchros, shift forks and the like. However, I've torn down an actual transmission or played around with the metalic bits. So can somebody point out in this picture where the synchros are physically located?

 

It wasn't the dealer that denied my warranty. It was Honda Care. The people at the dealer agreed with me that it was not driver abuse.

This is why I'd like WoodWork to give me some advice on what to do about it. Do I have a chance of getting my money back from Honda Care. I know that Honda Care is a totally separate entity from Honda. They are more like an insurance company than anything else.

In my case, I had both of the shafts rebuilt within 2.5 months of eachother. How can anyone abuse their car enough to do that? It's all B.S. if you ask me.

All this talk of "how to shift" is pointless. There shouldn't be any thought to shifting at all. If you have to try to think about what you are doing, then the damn thing was designed wrong in the first place. This isn't a Model T we are driving here.

 

In the picture above...

The 2 fingers rest on a shift fork rod between 2 shift forks and immediately above 5th and 4th gear.

The shift forks wrap around the synchro sleeve and cause the sleeve to move left or right.

The sleeve is a relatively thin cylinder with teeth along its inside wall.

Inside the sleeve and hidden from view here is the synchro hub with matching teeth.

The right most of the 2 gears immediately under the 2 fingers is 4th gear.

The thin cog like ring just to the right of 4th gear is also part of 4th gear (all one piece).

The even thinner brass ring with matching cogs just to the right of 4th gear is the visible part of the 4th gear synchro.

Pressure is applied to the cone surface of the brass synchro ring as the 3rd / 4th gear synchro sleeve is moved to the left when engaging 4th gear. Since 4th gear is a double cone synchro the visible brass synchro pushes against a cone ring and then another brass cone ring both of which are hidden between 4th gear and the synchro ring. One of the hidden brass cones is locked to 4th gear and as the pressure and friction builds 4th gear and the synchro sleeve match speed. At some point the pressure builds enough for the synchro sleeve to pop past the synchro spring which up until that point has kept the synchro sleeve from engaging the cogs on 4th gear.

If the speed of the sleeve and the gear are matched when the sleeve pops past the spring then the sleeve will smoothly engage the cogs on 4th gear. If there is still a speed differential between the sleeve and 4th gear then the teeth on the inside of the sleeve will grind against the cogs on 4th gear.

 

Elistan, hope this helps.