Cars

Hi,

Today I had a driving lesson, and, before we started actually driving, the driving instructor explained how the car works (this is for a manual car). This helped me understand the basics of driving a car and how the gears worked, so I thought i might write an artical about it to help others understand also.

OK, for starters, the gears you change in the ‘H’ pattern in the driver’s seat of the car goes down to the transmission which is connected to the engine via the clutch. They are connected by 2 flat plates and when you put your foot down on the clutch, you are disconnecting the transmission from the engine. On the other side of the transmission there is the drive shaft that runs down the middle of the car to the rear wheel/differential, the one that spins to make the car go.

The clutch is a pedal at the floor of the car that, when is pushed down, is disconnecting the transmission plate and the engine plate, allowing you to change gears without interrupting the momentum of the engine plate. When you have changed to the gear you desire, you slowly release the clutch (reconnecting the 2 plates) to what is called the friction point. The friction point is where the 2 plates are touching, but they are still sliding against each other, this makes the transmission plate gradually increase to the speed of the engine plate, resulting with a smooth acceleration and no bumps or jerks.

When you put your foot on the accelerator, you are spinning the engine plate, which in turn, will spin the transmission plate which will run down the drive shaft and hence spinning the wheels. However, when you are changing gears, you can’t just change straight away because the transmission plate will be spinning at a different rate to the engine plate which will cause the car to stop. So when you wish to change a gear, you must use the clutch to disconnect the 2 plates and then change gears and slowly release it as explained above.

All the different gears, whether your car have 4 gears, 5 gears, 6 gears. These are all represented by different size plates. The lower the gear, the bigger the plate. Anyone who has studied physics will probably understand this. For all others, I will try my best to explain. If you have a large gear/plate (transmission plate – gear 1) and a smaller plate powering it (engine plate) the smaller plate will have to spin faster to turn the big plate at a higher speed. In turn, if the 2 plates are the same size (a higher gear resulting in a smaller plate) the 2 plates will spin at the same speed and spin the wheels faster.

This was my attempt at explaining the basics of how a car works. I understand that I am not a professional on cars and this is just what I have learnt from having a driving lesson. However, I may research this some more, as I found it quite interesting, and I might submit another article explaining more about it.