+1. When you know what is going on inside you can get a much better feel for what the car is doing.
When you are cruising along, if you back off the accellerator a bit you can feel the whole drivetrain go ‘loose’ (If you back off a bit more you will start engine braking). This the backlash in the gearbox & you will find you can pop it out of gear without the clutch quite easily. Putting it back in without the clutch is best practiced on an enemies car.
When my truck’s clutch cylinder blew, I managed to limp it to the shop just by rev-matching and slipping it into each gear. I couldn’t stop without stalling, so I definitely blew a couple stop signs, but I made it.
You’ve gotten a lot of solid practical advice, so I’ll take it to theory.
Learn how it works and what happens when you push that clutch in and let it out.
Here’s a video with a lot of detail and animation.
+1. When you know what is going on inside you can get a much better feel for what the car is doing.
When you are cruising along, if you back off the accellerator a bit you can feel the whole drivetrain go ‘loose’ (If you back off a bit more you will start engine braking). This the backlash in the gearbox & you will find you can pop it out of gear without the clutch quite easily. Putting it back in without the clutch is best practiced on an enemies car.
When my truck’s clutch cylinder blew, I managed to limp it to the shop just by rev-matching and slipping it into each gear. I couldn’t stop without stalling, so I definitely blew a couple stop signs, but I made it.