well me personally, i just go halfway or so..once in a while i'll grind and ill take a mental note and remind myself to press down a bit farther the next time.

 

I don't think I even push the clutch halfway down when I shift. Our engagement point is high; you just need to push it a little bit down for the clutch to engage. Have had the car brand new for 35k miles now and not a problem yet.

 

I assume most of you debating this drive automatics, because most of this is common knowlege if you have even driven a manual. Test grinding is not exactly needed, because you must disengage the clutch before removing the car from gear (unless you give it a good pull, or are in a no load situation), so unless you engage the clutch between gears you will not grind.

 

I just realized that I probably have rarely pushed the clutch pedal all the way down. I set my seat far enough away that with my leg fully extended, I am past the contact point, but not to the floor. Some of you are probably too tall to do this and some of you don't want your arms fully extended as well.

I've been doing this for 40 years, but haven't realized it until just now.

 

I think you just shot yourself in the foot. Push it all the way down.
I tried your method for a while too, but it didn't save me any time in shifting because I always had to be careful to push it farther than my unreliable mental note. Now, I just kick the clutch fast & hard to the floor during the gear change. No more mental notes.

 

I never go all the way down. High engagement point = you can push it down just enough. You can feel when its right to shift, if you cant trade your car in and stab yourself in the leg-->buy an auto.

 

A reason for pushing it all the way down past the necessary point? Habit. If you establish a habit you won't have to think about it when you drive someone else's car, when your clutch changes from wear, when you have your clutch adjusted or when you get a new clutch.

 

Originally Posted by Spike100
Do you do some "test grinding" to determine that point?
That response was in fun... pointing out the absurdity of this statement:
My original response:

 

Exactly. I have never pushed the clutch all the way down? Just enough to disengage- that's all you need you noobs!

 

I'm not trying to save time...I'm just lazy.

 

that's why my advise is that smart people push the clutch all the way down every time.

i understand this can be hard for those with weak calves but practice makes perfection

 

Pushing all the way down= inefficiency and non-necessity

 

Back in the mid 1960’s, when I used to drag race with my 1962 Pontiac 389/3-deuces/4MT, ‘family car’ at the track (…and the street…), I wouldn’t have thought of not ‘aiming’ to floor the clutch pedal.

It would go something like this:

Once off the line, and with the gas pedal firmly floored, watch for the tachometer to get within 500 RPM from the red line.
Step on the clutch as fast and hard as possible, and this meant all the way down.
Just as the pedal would be ready to hit bottom, yank the Hurst T-handle hard into 2nd gear, and just as it engaged, raise my foot quickly of the clutch to allow it to come up*. Watch the tach again, and repeat. All the while with the accelerator floored.

Granted – I have not shifted like that (we used to call it power shifting) in many years, and probably won’t do it again unless I have a backup car, but it was fun to make the tires scream loudly between every shift. I was lucky that I never missed, but I knew several guys who did miss and did not fair out so well.

* I would not slip my foot off the pedal so that it would pop up, as many other guys would do, because in so doing I had a throwout bearing fail on me. I was not sure if the clutch popping had anything to do with the TO-bearing failure, but I just didn’t do it anymore.

Nando

 

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHHAA good 1