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Question: How does the shifting and clutch work on the manual transmission?
With your left hand on the
left handlegrip, when you pull the clutch lever with your
fingertips all the way, the clutch is disengaged. While the
clutch is disengaged, you may shift gears by rotating the
handlegrip/clutch lever (they are all together on one rotating
assembly) There are marks on the rotating assembly that show
which gear you are in. On the instrument panel, a green light
is illuminated when you are in neutral.
Because of the very limited
space available for gears in the scooter gearcase, these gears
do not have the syncromesh system that you might be accustomed
to in cars.
In modern automobiles, you
step on the clutch and shift into gear, there is no grinding of
gears because of a device that synchronizes and matches the gear
speeds before they are meshed. With the scooter gear box, there
is a little trick to get the gears engaged from a standstill.
With the engine running at idle and the gears in neutral, you
quickly pull in the clutch and immediately rotate the handlebar
assembly clockwise to get into first gear. If you sit for any
length of time with the clutch lever pulled in, the gears stop
rotating and engaging the gears becomes difficult. Once the
scooter is underway, this is no longer a problem.
So here we go:
Turn on the ignition. There
should be a green light showing on the instrument panel
indicating that the gearbox is in neutral. If not in neutral,
there is a safety switch that prevents you from starting the
engine.
Start the engine.
When the engine is running
smoothly, and you are ready to go. Pull in the clutch and
immediately rotate the grip assembly clockwise (about 10
degrees) you can't rotate too far because you will feel it come
up against a stop. You are now in first gear. While keeping
your foot on the brake, slowly let out the clutch lever until
you sense the engine slowing down. This is the point where your
clutch is beginning to engage. This is the most important check
that you will make. Knowing where the clutch begins to engage,
and how sensitive the clutch slip/engagement is, will save you a
lot of embarrassing stalls and jerky starts.
Now that you have a feel for
the clutch, rotate the right hand throttle control grip slightly
to get the engine a little above idle. Slowly let out the
clutch (you know where it's going to begin to engage) Release
the brake when you feel the engine slowing down and allow the
scooter to begin to move as the clutch begins to engage.
Continue to very slowly let the clutch out until it is fully
engaged. The temptation at this point is to fully release the
clutch lever, don't, continue to release it slowly until you are
certain that the clutch is fully engaged.
Once the clutch is fully
engaged (lever all the way out) you can add some power and begin
to accelerate. When the engine sounds like it is going too
fast, it's time to shift up to the next gear.
Pull in the clutch, reduce
the engine speed, and rotate the grip/clutch assembly about 20
degrees counter-clockwise. You will be passing through the
neutral position which is between 1st and 2nd gear, as you do so
you will feel a click as it passes through neutral, the next
click (detent) you feel is 2nd gear. With practice, you will be
doing all this in one smooth motion without thinking about it.
Now you can let the clutch
out more quickly but still smoothly, it's only when starting off
you need to be slower and more careful with the clutch
engagement. Add throttle as before to accelerate. Repeat for
gears 3 and 4.
For some insight into the inner workings of the manual transmission see our scooter swami's illustrated explanation. |
