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MG MGB Technical - Clutchless shifting

Just read Grahams post about haveing to limp home in 4th after his clutch pedal stopped working, and I thought that maybe he did not know how to drive his car without useing the clutch pedal.SOoooo-
for the members who grew up with automatic transmission here is a trick my father taught me too many years ago.
With car off trans in neutral start it and get it warm so it starts easy,turn off the ignition, shift into 1st turn key to start, the car will jump forward roughly give it a little gas and it will start,and you will be moveing along in 1st, bring it up to 3500 rpm [give or take] let off the gas and pull the lever back into neutral [timeing is everything, when you let off the gas there will be a "slack" point where there is no gear contact and they can be moved without clash]. Now you should be coasting along feeling good with yourself as the motorclub won't keep you waiting today.But it's not over yet, put minimal pressure on the shiftlever towards 2nd gear "Blip" the gas, as the rpms come down they will pass through the "slack" point we spoke of earlier and the lever will slide into 2nd. Who's better then you? 3rd & 4th work the same as 2nd, downshifting requires a little more rpm on the "Blip", when stopping shift into neutral and coast before repeatig the rough 1st gear take off, reverse is the same as 1st but a little harder because of the space it takes. This has worked for me on multiple occations to include multi-state trips with newly aquired "clasic" cars, but you might have a trick of you own so feel free to add it. RIC
R E L Lloyd

I grew up on a farm and learned to drive in farm trucks, on tractors and other such sporting machinery and also learned to drive clutchless. I drove semis delivering golf cars all over the place for a spell. It was easy to learn to shift those crash boxes and big old heavy geared transmissions without the clutch, but a light, full syncro'd car is another matter for some to learn this in, especially during a period of ditress. Trying to limp home clutchless, unless on a deserted road, without a clutch is asking for it. The shifting part is bad enough, but tooling down the road and needing to stop suddenly calls for a really cool head. Shifting clutchless into neutral on the overun is difficult in most cars
David

pretty well said by both...suggest practice. Last time I did that the person driving the car when the clutch went out looked at me like I was completely nuts until I drove it home through Denver traffic. You certainly have to be comfortable doing it ....just one of those weird things I practiced as a teenager along with learning to whistle in that piercing fashion through my teeth...that took 3 months to learn. Guess you never have that kind of time later but the clutchless shifting is a good thing to know with our cars age.

What part of Florida, David? Grew up in Palm Beach County.

JTB
J.T. Bamford

JT,
I've lived in the Jacksonville area for 11 years and before that for 6 years in Daytona. I'm originally from the Carolinas, Anderson South and Statesville North. I've spent a bit of time in Palm Beach county and my wife lived there when she was a little girl. It's a nice place and still has a lot of open country.
David
David

In my experiance, some boxes can be easily shifted cluthlessly, others are a pig...I had a Cortina once...real easy...my Saab 900T; forget it...a lot has to do with the feedback the gear linkage gives you. Oh...and of course if you really bang the box around you DO risk damage of course. One more point...if you need to start from rest, use third gear to start up, NOT first...or else everyone will laugh at your kangaroo shifting!!!
P J KELLY

Good advice, RIC. My older brother taught me how to shift without a clutch when I first got my license, and I've put it into practice many times since. I think the trick, as J.T. says, is that you should learn it beforehand. Then when the emergency comes, you already have practice.

Two more thoughts:

If the synchros in the transmission are pretty worn, then rather than lean on the shift lever while blipping the throttle, try to time it so you lean on the lever just before the rpm's are close to correct for the shift. I find that it's easy to grind the gears when the synchos are worn and the rpm's are far away from matching.

The other thing is that I have better luck at lower rpm's. Rather than rev up to 3500, I shift around 2800. I think the revs drop slower at a low engine speed, which makes the "slack" spot last longer.

Your mileage may vary.

Matt Kulka

The inability to shift on overrun is overcome by floating the throttle to remove the overrun condition, quite easily done on most cars.
George B.

Ah, this brings back memories. I too have used this technique to limp home. I agree with Matt, that it works better by shifting at much lower road speeds,at those points where the RPMs just naturally match up. You can find those points by clutchless downshifting, while coasting. Just hold the lever lightly against the gear position of choice, while decelerating. The lever will suck into position when the speeds match. As that happens, take note of the vehicle speed. Never tried this on the MG, but as I recall, my old Triumphski used to upshift at the following vehicle speeds: 3 MPH to 2nd, 7 MPH to 3rd, and about 14 MPH to 4th. As you can see, my speeds were so low, that I could practice in an empty parking lot. An associated trick, is to watch far ahead for traffic lights, and try to time it so you never have to stop. Thus minimizing the number of 1st gear starts. Of course, that royally ticks off your fellow commuters.
Terrence Goodell

when I was 15 years old I spent the summer driving 2 1/2 ton Dodge dump trucks in a river rock crushing/gravel business. After some practice we got good enough to shift the crash boxes (no synchro) without almost no crunching of gears. With 5 tons of river rock in a 2 1/2 ton truck you couldn't get going tho' without use of the clutch.
I had a DKW which had a freewheeling transmission (the engine dropped to idle when you took your foot off the throttle). It was easy to shift without the clutch. One thing I learned was how much the engine slows the car. Because of my DKW experience I typically put the tranny in neutral when my foot is off the throttle for a bit. With a 4 speed MGB and its low top ratio, going to neutral versus leaving it in top gear makes a huge difference in coasting.
Barry
Barry Parkinson

Barry,

That's "Okie Overdrive" in the words of my stepdad - who uses it generously. Coming down Mt. Tamalpias with him can be quite a thrill.

Matt K.
formerly of Novato.
Matt Kulka

George,
When you float the throttle you are no longer on the overun, are you?
David
David

Hi,
Easiest car I ever shifted without using the clutch was.. believe it or not - a VW Beetle, up & down no problem - fantastic gearbox. The clutch plate broke on my "B" several years ago and had to shift without the clutch - not too bad - you get used to it. Its a good skill to learn. Maybe it will save you from having to walk home one cold rainy night when the old "B" lets you down. When the starter hiccupped (again years ago) I got so mad at the car I turned the key to the on position - gave the car one hell of a push, jumped in popped the clutch and I was home. So now I am thinking, what do I do if the clutch and the starter both go on vacation at the same time?????? Hmmm
Alan

David,J.T.,P.J.,Matt etc fun to see so much feedback I also notice a commom thread,How old are we? My guess is 50 plus. Which leads to another question, have you passed this skill on to the next generation of clasic car owners? If not now when? Ric
R E L Lloyd

Marshalled a check point up near St.Jovite, Quebec for the Shell 4000 back in 1967.

One of the cars was a Triumph TR4. They had lost their clutch in the Rockies in British Columbia.

I imagine they had 'clutchless shifting' pretty well worked out!!!
Graham Ayers

One of the car magazines (road and track?)had a small piece on why clutchless shifting is so hard in modern cars. They discussed synchros and blocking rings and whatnot, and said it was basically impossible in some cars and easy in others.
My '93 Nissan Sentra was easy to shift from first to second without the clutch, but I was never able to shift anywhere else clutchless. I've never really tried it in my 4 synchro MGB, but I did master the downshift into first thing with my Dad's 3 syn MGA.
And the old start the car in 1st (and reverse) got me home about a month ago when the clutch line failed in my Nissan Pathfinder. Fortunately I was only a mile from home, and I decided it wasn't strictly necessary to explore the gearbox clutchless.
And I'm 34.
Chris

My first car, a '91 4cyl mustang (say what you will but I could not stop that car even AFTER I plowed it into a median on I5 goin about 80) had the beloved ford 5 spd. for a good couple months or so, I drove it with no clutch for the hell of it! I was thinking I could save clutch wear, but then realized that it would destroy my synchros... really easy though. kinda fun if you haven't tried it.
Chris

Hi

Graham, Mont Tremblant St. Jovite. My family had a summer place quite close to the track - we lived in Montreal. I saw some great Trans Am and Can Am racing there. Many fond memories. Saw the first Chaparrals (2 speed auto trans)aluminum 427's pre-wing days 2C or 2D can't remember now, so long ago - met Jim Hall & Hap Sharp who came all the way from Rattlesnake Raceway in Texas to beat everybody in those Chaparrals. Saw the 289 Cobras race against the Corvette Gran Sport. Saw John Surtees in the Can Am T-70 Lola, go airborne and upside down at 160+mph at the crest of the hill after the big hairpin. Saw Bruce McLaren in some of his first McLaren Can Am cars. Mark Donahue in Sunoco 1966 z-28 Camaro. God, but those were wonderful exciting times. I owned a TR3A then and froze every winter I had it. Great fun though. Thanks for mentioning the track brought back many good memories about events and friends who owned Healeys, Morgans, street driven Lotus 7s etc. Alan
Alan

Ric,
Not 50 yet, but it's sneaking up on me real fast!! I'll turn 45 this December. Funny you should ask about passing on this trick. My daughter turns 15 in a few days and I am in the process of teaching her how to drive, and clutchless shifting is part of it. Her lessons didn't start behind the wheel, they started under the hood and in my shop learning what makes the car run, turn and stop to begin with. She understands the concepts easily and is really interested in what makes these things tick. She was raised in and around MG's. I was taking her on long trips(300-500 miles one way) in MGB's when she still in diapers and to the car and motorcycle races at Daytona when she was just starting to talk well. I agree with you that we all need to pass the tricks of the trade on to the next generation and their enthusiasm will follow.
David
David

I'm surprised nobody mentioned turning the key off to stop. When you consider that you have to do that to get the car back into gear to start again anyway, it only makes sense. As long as you don't lock the steering wheel that is.

Jim
Jim Blackwood

Ric,

I'm a young 43. My brother who taught me is 47.

As to passing on the knowledge - Of my three children, the one interested in cars is my middle child, my 18 year old daughter. She insisted on learning to use a clutch, and so I taught her in the only manual shift in the fleet - my MGB.

The synchros in my transmission are dead tired. Even I have trouble shifting it without the clutch. A broken clutch hydraulic line forced my hand one day and I got home, but it was tough. Of course, it was commute hour too. When we get a transmission in better shape I will teach her to shift on the synchros. I hadn't thought if it before, but it's a good idea.

As to the good learning car, my first car was a '67 Volkswagen Squareback. It was a good car to shift without the clutch, but the trick was my stepmom's '74 Toyota Corona. You couldn't grind a gear in that thing unless you shifted into reverse on the highway. Wish I had one of those for the kids. What an iron horse it was.

Thanks for letting me babble on.

Matt Kulka

It's interesting how many of us have had to resort to this technique. In my case it was 25 years ago while driving home from a business trip. The car was a Vauxhall Viva and the clutch pedal snapped right off. I learnt the trick really quickly and managed to keep going through the suburban traffic, without stopping, for the best part of an hour. Eventually I had to stop for a red light and as I was considering how to get moving again I realised that I was outside a Vauxhall main dealer. I was back on my way with a new pedal in less than an hour!
Miles Banister

This thread was discussed between 03/10/2003 and 06/10/2003

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