The Gears – A Small Overview of the Automotive Transmission

The transmission is an automotive part where the power is transferred from the engine to a driving axle making the car move. Sometimes it is also known as the gear box because set of gears are found inside the transmission.

The manual transmission is commonly used by car manufacturers and it has various numbers of forward gears and one reverse gear, it is usually comes in “H” pattern. The driver can select any gear depending on the speed of the car. In order to select a gear the driver must step on the clutch pedal to disengage the clutch disk from the engine and release the pedal after selecting the desired gear.

Unlike the manual transmission, the automatic transmission doesn’t need and doesn’t have a clutch pedal to disengage the clutch disk when shifting gear. The automatic transmission shifts gear automatically and makes the car much easier to drive. Usually automatic transmissions have several selections such as the “P” for Park, "N” for Neutral, “D” for Drive, “R” for Reverse and “L” for Low. The overdrive button at the automatic transmission lever is used to maximize the output when driving at high speed. Most of the modern automatic transmission has the CVT (continuously variable transmission); it is different from the traditional automatic transmission because CVT uses pulley and belt instead of the gears.

The sequential transmission or semi automatic transmission doesn’t have any “H” pattern like the manual transmission because the movement of the lever is in two directions only. Through the help of CPU and electronic sensors installed in the car the clutch itself is controlled which synchronizes the timing and torque needed to make gear shifts fast and smooth. .

Some transmission have a so called dual clutch, it uses two clutches but has no clutch pedal. The advanced electronics and hydraulics control the clutches just like the standard automatic transmission. The two clutches work independent, the first clutch controls the odd gears (first, third, fifth and reverse), while the second controls the even gears (second, fourth and sixth).

Alvin D. Agomaa

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June 6, 2006