"Bill Hayles" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 16:12:41 +0100, Clive
wrote:

Just to complete the picture from that (my) era, the GS class was
the only LT bus with a crash box, which worked back-to-front (just
like the Citroen "H" van I once owned).

When you say "back to front" do you mean that the layout was:

3 1
4 2

(ie a left-to-right switch of the gear positions)

or

2 4
1 3

(ie a top-to-bottom switch of the gear positions)


I've seen a car somewhere which had a five-speed gearbox but the gears were
arranged as

R 2 4
1 3 5

rather than the more conventional

1 3 5
2 4 R


When people refer to "crash gearbox", do they literally mean one without
synchromesh (ouch!) or just a manual gearbox as opposed to a pre-selector,
clutchless or automatic? The thought of having to drive a car without
synchromesh shares me ****less. As a matter of interest, how long did it
take to acquire the sixth sense of how much to blip the accelerator while
double-declutching to allow the new gear to engage? With a synchromesh
gearbox, I've found the best way to do a clutchless gearchange is to
slightly over-rev the engine and let it slow down to the correct speed when
the gear will engage under slight pressure on the gearlever; is the same
true of a non-synchromesh gearbox?