Comments by "flagmichael" (@flagmichael) on "Never Do THIS to Your Manual Transmission Car" video.

  1. If every driver of a manual transmission car had to replace the clutch assembly himself when it wore out there would be a lot less clutch abuse. The last time I helped my son replace his pilot bearing (it failed in the first few weeks after the clutch job for no obvious reason) I pulled a muscle in my face as I struggled to hold it in the right position for him to get the first bell housing bolt in. It hurt for days!
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  2. All my kids are in their 40s now, but they all learned to drive a manual in their first year of driving. When I worked in the IT Field Services department of a Fortune 100 electric company - mountaintop comm sites in any weather, remote devices far from any actual road - it was assumed anybody applying for the job knew how to drive a manual. When one new guy had a throwout linkage failure (hydraulic or cable IDK) the rest of us were amazed he didn't know how to drive it with the clutch always engaged. It may be different in different areas, but for decades I hardly knew anybody who was unfamiliar with manual transmissions.
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  3. Yes! Speed shifting chews up the edges of the gears. It isn't a big deal to shift without the clutch by rev matching if the clutch linkage fails but these things must be done delicately or you hurt the spell.
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  4. Every adult in my family can drive a manual, including my wife and my daughter. I have at least 500K miles on more than a dozen manual transmission vehicles, including five work trucks and a 1969 Lotus Europa. (Amazing fact: the Europa of that vintage [S2] uses a Renault 16 engine and transaxle; the transaxle would have four reverse gears and only one forward gear if left stock because the assembly is switched from front to rear mid engine. To modify the gearbox the differential cage is flipped over left/right.) What I like least about manuals on the trucks is that when struggling up forest roads in snow it is essentially impossible to shift from second to first gear; the truck gets out of downshift range in a fraction of a second, and truck trannies are not meant for rapid shifts. What I like second least off-road is creeping through a tricky patch of road - they don't creep well below a couple miles per hour.
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  5. Good catch! It is theoretically possible to rev match in reverse if rolling backward but the gears are mighty unforgiving. I ignorantly tried it a couple times but the noise warned me off.
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  6. I haven't driven one since I was about 63 - I first drove one when I was 18. I don't miss it, really.
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  7. I did that for years - probably helped, didn't hurt.
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  8. For decades I was taught it was illegal (California and Arizona) but no explanation why.
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  9.  @bechtoea  Yes - only reverse. All the other gears are helically cut. I once knew why but that was half a century ago.
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  10. As another commenter mentions, Subarus have a problem with the throwout bearing eating through the transmission housing if the driver rides the clutch. Many newer Ford models have concentric clutch slave cylinders; they work just fine but if the cylinder starts leaking - a common problem with all clutch master and slave cylinders - the transmission has to be removed to change the cylinder.
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  11. Shelf life... on a shelf? Should be longer than motor oil, which rapidly becomes obsolete through evolving specs. Be aware there are sulfur and non-sulfur forms.
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  12. Having to shift on hills?
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  13. In that case nobody would ever learn to drive a stick. When my first partner at work was testing for his CDL the examiner had him stop uphill and make sure he used the parking brake method to get going. The point is that the parking brake method is more foolproof.
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  14. I did that once for almost a thousand miles over a three week period after a clutch cable broke hundreds of miles from home and on the other side of a mountain range. My take on it is that if you are getting the gears to slip in and not using more than gentle pressure you are going to be okay. Just don't play the game too long.
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  15. Yes indeed - lots of videos on YT about the throwout bearing eating through the transmission case in WRXs.
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  16. Ooh - that sounds nice!
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