GEAR BOX IMPROVEMENT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLIX, 31 August 1929, Page 14

GEAR BOX IMPROVEMENT.

I HISTORY OF ADVANCEMENT. ‘ ‘ With our modern high efficiency engines giving greatt power for their size, .Tfie_ .sturdy .but .light chassis and genera L improvement of car design, it a® an extraordinary thing that the gwr box as we know it remains my little changed .from what it was a. quarter of a century ago/' writes a southern correspondent. "When Levassor, of Panhard Lcva.ssor fame, invented it, and brought it. into practice, he remarked ‘it is crude, but it works! ’ Any part of a cair .that worked efficiently in those days was sure to become widely known, and so our gear box. The first ‘gear change’ was of the ‘quadrant type,’ that, is to sa.y the lever Was moved from slot to slot cut on a quadrant, top gear position being one end and reverse the other. There are cars still running about Christchurch with this type of change. Later came the ‘gate change,’ which was a distinct advance on the old type. "One of the first developments was made by do Dion. Bouton. This briefly was instead of the gears running >om a keyed shaft they were- allowed to rotate ircely, but the power was- transmitted by ‘ dogs, ’ which engaged the gears solid on the shaft. This made an even larger and more complicated gear box, and led to manufacturing difficulties, and so it was dropped.

"Later on, about 1008-09, the WolseIcy and White cars had instead of a direct -drive on. top gear, a. straight through drive on third gear, uirnost dead silent, and a. geared up top or fourth gear. This idea, was really excellent, and some of the old Wolselevs one sees still about town have this idea incorporated.

"It is on these lines, with a. silent third gear, that the -modern: four-speed f gear-box is developing. First of all in I recent years, it was brought in in England by the Riley Company, aud now it is being developed in .the iTnite.d States toi such an extent that it looks as if to •have a gear box with only three speeds will be Jake having a car without fo-ur-I wheel brakes and balloon tyres. "The Riley has specially-cut gears | and the Stutz and (.traham-Paige and other American ears have internal gears. In all those earns it is almost impossible to know on which gear a. car is running, except by the note of the engine. This latest development has been brought in by the fact that a car, to have good powers of acceleration, and yet be able to- travel at really high speeds, requires two. totally different conditions. So, therefore, the logical development is for a. car to have a lower gear dead silent for town work and a good high gear for country runs. In .these gear boxes it is quite possible to change down at high speeds without double do-.clutching. This seems the lino of development on which wc will go for the next year or two.”