well today shifting can be done electronicley.but unsprung weight is a thorn.
--- On Tue, 2/2/10, Will Owen <[email protected]> wrote: From: Will Owen <[email protected]> Subject: Subject: Re: [alfa] Those Troublesome Guibos To: "alfa" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010, 7:19 PM George Graves says: > On a solid axle car, a transmission/differential COULD, conceivably, be mounted in unit with the solid half-shafts, but imagine the engineering problems of coupling the shift mechanism to a transmission moving with the suspension, not to mention the unsprung weight. The American car industry is way ahead of you, George. There were in fact several cars built in the Teens and Twenties that had gearboxes in unit with the rear axle. The problem of unsprung weight was little understood then - I wouldn't doubt that those designers thought that a nice heavy back axle would "hold the road" better. I'm also going to assume that those cars used the same sort of torque tube that Ford used, with a single U-joint at the chosen pivot point and a tube-encased driveshaft affixed to the tranny/final drive. That would simplify the shift linkage problem, since you'd just need to have the shifter alongside the shaft's pivot point and then the rest of the link would just ride the shaft back. I love archaic technology. It shows that people were thinking hard about this stuff, even when they got it dead wrong. Will -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected] -- to be removed from alfa, see http://www.digest.net/bin/digest-subs.cgi or email "unsubscribe alfa" to [email protected]
