Hey there all! I've been reading though some threads and I saw a reference that it wasn't good to rest your hand on the shifter while it was in gear / while you were driving.

I then came across another post that stated this wasn't good because it would wear out the synchros?

I've seen 'synchros' referenced in a few other threads ... but I still don't know what they are.

Can someone give me a quick run-down on this? ie: What synchros are, what they do, how often do they need to be replaced? Is resting your hand on the shifter truly bad?

Thanks in advance!

Joe

 

I rest my hand on the shifter all the time. I think its bad practice because you can knock the car out of gear without pressing on the clutch... so that means if you do rest your hand on the shifter, any force to a particular direction will cause some wear on the syncros.

 

i always rest my hand on the shifter but lightlky.,....it really cant be hurting anything is it????

 

sorta like dripping water wearing down the grand canyon. the gears are turning VERY fast, so the slightest pressure on such fast moving parts is amplified wearing the gears. not sure Ive heard of it hurting the synchros tho.

best to let the shifter rest on its own since it is directly connected to the gears, you want all of that to be in its own nuetral position not forced in any particular way.

 

Geezz....are you guys serious?
I rest my hand on the shifter all the time....for faster shifting.

 

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission4.htm

"A synchro's purpose is to allow the collar and the gear to make frictional contact before the dog teeth make contact. This lets the collar and the gear synchronize their speeds before the teeth need to engage"

It makes the gears your meshing together spin the same speed before the teeth mesh, this is supposed to keep them from grinding, and does MOST of the time...

Since your in gear ALREADY I just don't see a little presure on the stick doing anything to the syncros. I'm no mechanic though.

P.S. If the link doesn't work (never posted a link here) just do a search for "transmission" on howstuffworks.com. Pretty "laymans terms" way of explaining it.

 

As for resting your hand on the shifter and the effect thereof. There are other parts of the driving equation that could potentially be affected.

I know I still do it once in a while driving around town but, well read the link, this is a bit of an eye opener. (Sorry seems Turnfast is kind of dogged at the moment, link to Google cache)

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Original article: http://www.turnfast.com/tech_driving...shifting.lasso