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Port and Starboard reverse

skywords

Donation Time
My Series I has the reverse aft and starboard and my Series II has the reverse aft and port? The series I tranny is much smoother, is it the later tranny with the better sychros? The series II has OD.

Rick
 

Nickodell

Donation Time
The introduction of baulk-ring synchromesh made changing gear much easier, and, like the electric starter, allowed the great mass of people to drive, but made the actual gear change less pleasant - it has been described as more "notchy."

I learned to drive on a very beat-up pre-WWII car with no synchromesh, essentially what used to be called a "crash box," and once you learned to synchronize engine and transmission speeds by ear and feel, the gear stick slipped from gear to gear like the proverbial knife through butter. This stood me in good stead 30+ years later when the cable-operated clutch broke in a rented Renault in which my wife and I were driving in pouring rain, at night, in the Scottish highlands. I was able to get us 30-odd miles to the next town by synchronizing engine and transmission at each gear change, and being careful not to let the car come to a complete stop at any time (impossible to get into motion again without a clutch).

Back in the old days (up to the 1950s) Rolls Royce scorned synchromesh for chauffer-driven limousines, instead offering purchasers a four-day course for their chauffers, covering the optimum driving and maintaining of their new charge. Two days were devoted to gear changing alone, and the drivers were told that the only way their passengers should be able to tell that they had changed gears would be by the sound of the engine changing.
 

lemansvk

Donation Time
My Series I has the reverse aft and starboard and my Series II has the reverse aft and port? The series I tranny is much smoother, is it the later tranny with the better sychros? The series II has OD.

Rick

If reverse is starboard (next to top) then your Series I has a late model, all synchro gearbox fitted. My experience is that this is a smoother and quieter transmission than the non-synchro-1st type (reverse next to 2nd).

Cheers, Vic (Alpine III with professionally rebuilt non-synchro box: Vogue III with all-synchro box, history unknown)
 
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