Syncromesh is for wimps

[peteturbo]

Hi,
A common problem with 944s is wiped out syncromesh. Mines been like it for five years, impossible to 'normally' change down in first, second or third without massive drivechain judder.
MAN UP and learn to drive properly and heel and toe it.
I love it. Proper skill of changing down and matching revs as you chuck it into the local roundabout like a 1930s Le Mans racer.
It teaches you to be gently, sympathetic and treat the drive chain with respect and feel.
The less driver's aids the better.
Anyone with similar feelings to yet another 'aid' that distracts from the pure expereince of driving?
Peteturbo

[Slippydiff]

peteturbo said:

Hi,
A common problem with 944s is wiped out syncromesh. Mines been like it for five years, impossible to 'normally' change down in first, second or third without massive drivechain judder.
MAN UP and learn to drive properly and heel and toe it.
I love it. Proper skill of changing down and matching revs as you chuck it into the local roundabout like a 1930s Le Mans racer.
It teaches you to be gently, sympathetic and treat the drive chain with respect and feel.
The less driver's aids the better.
Anyone with similar feelings to yet another 'aid' that distracts from the pure expereince of driving?
Peteturbo

Top lurking !!

Of course you could just fix the 'box.... Though driving properly would avoid the trashing of the synchros in the first place .....

I think the days of drive chains has long since gone



But if you have got drive chains, I doubt any amount of heel and toeing will stop the massive drivechain judder you've experienced as you chuck it into the local roundabout like a 1930s Le Mans racer....

[Discombobulate]

peteturbo said:

Hi,
A common problem with 944s is wiped out syncromesh. Mines been like it for five years, impossible to 'normally' change down in first, second or third without massive drivechain judder.
MAN UP and learn to drive properly and heel and toe it.
I love it. Proper skill of changing down and matching revs as you chuck it into the local roundabout like a 1930s Le Mans racer.
It teaches you to be gently, sympathetic and treat the drive chain with respect and feel.
The less driver's aids the better.
Anyone with similar feelings to yet another 'aid' that distracts from the pure expereince of driving?
Peteturbo

My 968 was the same - no synchromesh any more - but your massive drive line judder has nowt to do with worn synchromesh. You have other issues I suspect.

[Slippydiff]

Discombobulate said:

My 968 was the same - no synchromesh any more - but your massive drive line judder has nowt to do with worn synchromesh. You have other issues I suspect.

Torque tube (itself and it's mountings) shot to start off with, and no doubt a host of other bushes in the rear suspension shot too (and the engine mounts probably) ....

[peteturbo]

To be frank, i've never really understood the distinction between double declutching - rev the engine in between shifts to match engine revs (guess) and heel and toeing withioout DDC where you just rev to match engine revs once as you come down.
probably we dont know the difference any more in this lost art i am promoting.
And yes, of course there is drive train slack in my old car! lol.

[nudgerwilliams]

Here's how I have always understood it. When you double de-clutch, you blip the throttle with the gearbox in neutral and the clutch out, with the aim of matching the speed of the gearbox input shaft (driven by the engine) and the output shaft (driven by the road wheels). Then when you declutch and select the lower gear, the rotational speed of the two shafts matches and the gears engage smoothly - hence no need for syncro.

When you heal and toe you are matching the speed of the two clutch plates, so when you re-engage the clutch you don't get a jerk as the engine speed gets dragged up to match wheel speed.

I confess I've never really understood how gearboxes work, so I may have got this completely wrong.

David

[paua]

Double de-clutcher here. My car has a singlemass flywheel, it may not be "necessary" to ddc, but it is smoother. You can (& should be able to ) combine ddc with hnt. Your car will appreciate it.

[Vanordinaire]

Before I learned to drive cars, I drove tractors around the farm. My first personal vehicle was a 1958 Fordson Dexta which I bought myself at age 12. Having no synchromesh at all (first tractor I remember with synchromesh was a Leyland Sychro which came out around 1974) , I had to teach myself double de-clutching so that I could drive it like a car and pretend I was Roger Clark as I broadsided around the stubble fields.
It stood me in good stead when I learned to drive in an Austin 1800 'Landcrab' with knackered synchro in the lower gears a few years later, then later still when driving my dad's old Ex-army Bedford . Since then I've driven hundreds of different vehicles , most of which had perfectly good synchromesh , but I'd like to think my continued use of the DDC has expressed some of my mechanical sympathy to them and maybe just helped the drive train last a little longer in some of them. It even helped me to drive a mini on a 300 mile trip with no clutch in my student days.Besides,even today, I think it sounds great on something with a raspy exhaust like my wee MX5.