4th Gear semantics

[richboyd]

Is 4th gear really a gear? Doesn't the term "gear" mean that power
has been transmitted through a pair of gears? OK, I am spliiting
hairs - a favorite pasttime of mine.

While I'm on this rant, I'd accept the 1:1 ratio in 4th as an "input
shaft RPM : outshaft shaft RPM" ratio, but not a "gear ratio," since
no gear sets are involved.

So what do you call 4th? "Drive" or "Drive Gear" (as short for
"Direct Drive) seems correct. But "Drive" is wed to the "D" on an
automatic transmission gear selector (Yuck!).

Rich Boyd

two little footnotes;
1. I am also bothered by the use of "battery" when describing a
single 1.5V cell. Dictionaries say it is a legitimate usage. Hmmm.
2. for Terry Stillman - your Username is "tstillman" and your
Password is "lotuselan" . Just joking. How many of us have passwords
similar to "lotuselan"?

[mikecauser]

On Sun, 05 Feb 2006 10:55:39 -0800 "Richard A. Boyd" <***@***.***> wrote:


In the case of an Elan 1st, 2nd and 3rd "gear" are transmitted through
two pairs of geras inside the gearbox. 4th goes through no gears as you
say, by logic you have a 7 gears in there. But if you open the top you
will see 4 pairs of gears, so it *is* a 4-speed after all! OTOH, if you
have an all-indirect box, you have one more pair of gears in there than
the number advertised on the gear-knob. Ah-ah, and the "gear-knob"
isn't a gear, so subtract one.



Why not adopt the French style and call it a "vitesse"? Unless of
course you have a Triumph Vitesse, in which case conversations with
your garage are going to be difficult. However if you do talk to your
garage the men in white coats will come and take you away for talking to
the walls.



Incorrect, the place where you find a number of bats is called a
"roost".


HTH, HAND, KTTM.


Mike
--
Mike Causer Email - mailto:***@***.***
GPG KeyID 1C2DDA07 WWW - http://www.mikecauser.com
Flood the fen again! - Wicken Fen enlargement - http://www.wicken.org.uk

[Esprit2]

Rich,

Your Elan must be working well if terminology is all you need to fix.


GM's old Hydromatic would have blown your mind. It had three gear-driven
speeds and a two phase torque converter. One "shift" you felt was the
vanes in the torque converter switching positions. It felt for all the
world like shifting gears. If you didn't know any better and counted
shifts as the car accelerated "up through the gears", you would come up
with four, not three. What would you call that one?

The etymology of words often takes a turn as common usage takes it somewhere
it wasn't originally intended to go. True, battery is not the correct
term for a single electric cell (a battery is a combination of multiple
cells). However, common vernacular refers to a single cell, like a 1.5
volt AA, as a battery. Even manufacturer's packaging now refers to them
as "batteries". After a while you don't fight it any more, and they're
batteries. Same with names that become nouns, like nylon and kleenex.
Somebody's best laid plans went south on those two, but that's were we are.

Keep tilting at those windmills...

Tim



----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard A. Boyd" <***@***.***>
To: "Lotus List" <***@***.***>
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 12:55 PM
Subject: [LotusElan.net] 4th Gear semantics

[Billmack]

You clearly have too much free time.
Go wax your car or something
Bill

[hantsjo]

Tim,
Nylon was invented by charles sitne, a vice president of du pont on october
27, 1938... thought everyone knew that!! he 'invented' it and decided to
call it Nylon ( New York - LONdon)..... an AA battery will always be a cell
to me.... ah well back to the car - pit

Jo 65 S2

[frearther]

Rich,
The kneebone's connected to the thigh bone, but the input
shaft ain't connected to the output shaft except through two gearsets
which happen to be reciprocals of each other. And isn't 1:1 a ratio?

Art

26/4934


At 01:55 PM 2/5/2006, you wrote:

Arther H. Frederick
Initial Reaction - embroidered and decorated apparel
3869 Route 66, Chatham Centre
Valatie, NY 12184
518-392-4287
***@***.***

[richboyd]

Thanks for the responses to my 4th gear rambling. Just stirring up
symantic trouble.

Bill,
Yes. Too much free time. Where did I put the car wax.

Mike,
Now I know: roost, not battery. I'll use gallery instead of artery, etc.
I like your suggestion: use "speed" (vitesse) instead of "gear." 4th
speed from now on.

Tim,
Your description of a Hydramatic sounds really interesting. Looking
into the shifting vane position will consume some of that excess free
time that Bill says I have.

Art,
Gotta disagree: shifting into 4th speed does indeed couple the input
shaft to the output shaft. No power goes through any gear set.
Two-shaft transmissions (motorcycles, some transaxles, etc.) can't do
this, but most (all?) three-shaft transmissions employ this direct
drive system. BMW had a direct drive 5th speed, even though the shift
knob moves forward to select 5th. BMW has a bell crank inside the
trans to reverse shift lever direction (at bottom of lever) so that
the synchro can slide forward for 5th.
Yes, 1:1 is a ratio. But a ratio between what two things? Not a ratio
between two gears (or any combination of gears); not in 4th. That was my point.

Rich Boyd


At 11:29 AM 2/5/2006, you wrote:

[poiuyt]

Rich,

Now I have to disagree on this point. We just spent a day at a
transmission tech session at Quantummechanics in Monroe, CT. and,
while the input and output shafts are connected directly, it is done
by the locking of the synchros. These are, technically, gears.

As far as ratio, the ratio is between the speed of the input shaft
and the speed of the output shaft. After all, if you look at an old
Daf (anyone remember that car) transmission, there were no gears at
all, with the ratio changes due to the varying sizes of two pulleys
and a belt. I believe this is also used on some recent Audi
transmissions!

Steve B.


--- In ***@***.***, Richard Boyd <richboyd@...> wrote:

[mikecauser]

On Mon, 06 Feb 2006 22:01:51 -0000 "Steve B" <***@***.***> wrote:


Oh no they not! They're dogs. The "synchro" gets the speeds matched,
so the "dog" can slip in. It's the dog that transmits the power.



The Van Doorne (DAF) trasmission has been used in small Ford and
Fiat cars. The torque of an Audi might be too much for it though.



Mike
--
Mike Causer Email - mailto:***@***.***
GPG KeyID 1C2DDA07 WWW - http://www.mikecauser.com
Flood the fen again! - Wicken Fen enlargement - http://www.wicken.org.uk

[marcfuller]

More pedantic semantics - it is DAF (Van Doorne's AanhangwagenFabriek'),
not "Daf". BTW - Nissan also uses CVT transmissions, in the US they are
in the current Murano SUV.

At 03:01 PM 2/6/2006, you wrote:

[marcfuller]

The NA market Nissan Murano with a CVT in either 2 wheel and 4 wheel drive
models has 245 hp @ 5,800 rpm and 246 lb-ft of torque @ 4,400 rpm.

At 04:18 PM 2/6/2006, you wrote:

[Billmack]

Those are not gears.they splines or maybe dogs if you got a motorcycle or
some sorta high dollar racing box.
Bill

[poiuyt]

And a screw is actually an inclined plane!
Take a gearset, one with teeth on the outside and the other with teeth
on the inside of a hole drilled in the center and make them about 6 or
8 inches wide and you have a spline - but it's still a gearset!


--- In ***@***.***, ***@***.***e:

[c.beijersbergen]

DAF besides its lorry section had a series of small cars, the Daffodil, the 33, 44, 55 and 66. All these cars had a continiously variable automatic transmission based on rubber belts. In the late 60's DAF ran a F3 (1L, Cosworth SCA ca. 110 hp) racing team with cars with these transmissions, they performed rather well.

The passenger car department of DAF was sold to Volvo. They designed and produced the Volvo 300 (based on a DAF 77 design) and 400 series of somewhat larger cars. The 300 had a choice of the DAF transmission or a manual Volvo transmission. After considerable time the design department in the Netherlands was dismantled and the production facilities sold to Mitsubishu under the name of Nedcar. The Volvo V40/S40 was produced there together with a Mitsubishu on the same assembly line.Now the Smart for Four is produced on this line.

After DAF passenger cars were sold to Volvo a new company was grounded in the Netherlands to continiou the work done on next generation continiously variable automatic transmissions. This company is called VDT (Van Doorne's Transmissies). This new generation of transmissions is based on a more complex metal belt. VDT supplies these metal belts to a lot of car and transmission producers in the world. Power rating for these new transmissions is much larger than for the older DAF transmission. Already tests have been done with F1 power trains.



Cor Beijersbergen van Henegouwen

[Harald S. Feeß]

AUDI "Multitronic", torque up to 310 Nm
http://www.audiworld.com/news/99/multit ... tent.shtml
http://www.videos.scores.de/elvis_audi_werbung.shtml