Manual comes out of gear with no clutch

[mschipa]

Hi all,

I used to own a '73 road runner, 360, 4 speed (I know, slow and pokey but it looked great). You could, literally, easily drive the car without the clutch with the exception of starting off in 1st and reverse - rev matching the whole way up and down the gears once you started off. My brother and I drove that car like that for years and probably added time to the clutch. Anyway, yesterday, I was driving on the highway in semi-stop and go and I just reached up and pulled it out of 3rd gear into neutral without the clutch. It came out of gear as smoothly as if I had used the clutch. So, being that type of person, I tried it again and then all the way home and no problem. It might be that this is true for all cars everywhere but I'd never tried it on my 2010 challenger 6 speed (and I've owned for 15 years) because I just thought the road runner did it because the transmission was old and a bit worn and torn. Interesting. Anyone else try moving out of gear without a clutch?

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[Brian_B]

All of them should do that if you don’t have a lot of torque getting pushed through the drive train when you try it

 

[Techun]

Normal


Edit - you can even put it INTO other gears smoothly without using the clutch as well...

 

[HighVelocity]

I find that if I just bump into the car in front of me at stops I don't have to use the brakes. Saves me tens of dollars on new pads every 10 years.

 

[mschipa]

I find that if I just bump into the car in front of me at stops I don't have to use the brakes. Saves me tens of dollars on new pads every 10 years.

Good tip!

 

[VirginiaHeritage]

No. I’ve never had a mechanical problem that required it or delusions of being a street racer. A properly used clutch plate should last 100k or more and is usually cheaper to replace than rebuilding a transmission because the synchro-mesh or gears are trashed.

 

[mschipa]

Normal


Edit - you can even put it INTO other gears smoothly without using the clutch as well...

Yeah, I figured you could do that with the Bronco by rev matching but don't want to. It was more of a novelty yesterday. We used to drive the RR that way because first it was a hoot and then it became just the way we drove the car.

 

[mschipa]

No. I’ve never had a mechanical problem that required it or delusions of being a street racer. A properly used clutch plate should last 100k or more and is usually cheaper to replace than rebuilding a transmission because the synchro-mesh or gears are trashed.

Yes, my challenger's clutch is like brand new because and I learned seom tips from a car and driver article about 35 years ago:
1) KEEP YOUR FOOT OFF THE CLUTCH
2) Do not downshift through the gear to slow down
3) KEEP YOUR FOOT OFF THE CLUTCH
4) Car in neutral and foot on the brake at traffic lights
5) KEEP YOUR FOOT OFF THE CLUTCH
6) Do not hold the car on a hill with the clutch
7) KEEP YOUR FOOT OFF THE CLUTCH
and so on. There were a few more but I forget them but the point was KEEP YOUR FOOT OFF THE CLUCTH which resonated well with me and has served me well.

 

[CalvinT]

When I was in high school I drove my Father's 1955 F-100 around town without using the clutch. It would even start in gear.

When at Overland Expo I talked to a Ford engineer who was allowed to take a GT home a couple of times. He told me he only used the clutch a couple of times (stop signs).

 

[MilesTeg]

Pretty much any manual will do this. It's part of what's called "floating gears".

You can also put it in gear without the clutch if you revmatch just right (timing on upshift, revving on downshift). But, if you don't revmatch just right, you'll fry your synchros really quickly because instead of just speeding up or slowing down the input side of the transmission, they are tasked with speeding up or slowing down the engine if the clutch is not in. That's a couple orders of magnitude more work/wear than they are intended to do.

I floated gears with my old POS Chevy Luv back in high school, but not with cars I actually care about, hah.

 

[Jakob1972]

I dunno I would do it quite a bit in my Cobalt mostly just being lazy didn't have to use my left leg on my 2 hour commute each way. I have 375K mile on the clutch. Got 347K miles on the original Belt when I decided to change it when I took it off to replace the alternator.

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