Going into neutral

[decoy]

i have this phenomenon where i can move into neutral from any gear without clutching in. as long as the accelerator isnt pressed in..

i just hope that thats not how manual cars are designed to work..

[leamyj]

Why not??

[decoy]

why not what?? it just goes against everything ive been told.. probably lies..

did some snooping on .. google.. it seems that its a common practice to shift into neutral from a gear as long as prm's are low/right..

it just doesnt feel natural

[leamyj]

I'm told that it is possible to engage and disengage gears on most manual cars , without use of the clutch, all down to timing and revs...vaguely remember seeing something on youtube before too.

[Steve]

Yep, you can do it in the '5 easily enough too if (as John said) you time it right, I used it one day to get home with a dead slave cylinder, no crunching either.

[decoy]

yep no crushing or grinding noise , ive only tried it under 2500 revs. and it seems ok, going into neutral that is, going into gear i think there is a safety feature that doesnt allow you to grind into gear..

[Fergus]

Yeah it's possible to change gears without using the clutch, do it wrong though to many times and you'll wear down the cams (don't ask me why because I do not know - I just know they get worn down).

[sidewaysreilly]

you mean syncro's Fergus. Older gearboxes didnt have syncromesh to equalise the gear speeds to avoid grinding and drivers had to blip the throttle or double clutch to engage the next gear. It was a pain at first but you soon got used to it. We had a DAF truck once with a 9 speed Dog/Crash/Constant Mesh Box and it was a bitch to master but once mastered it was very quick.Way quicker than syncomesh boxes.