Vehicle Transmission

Purpose:

Explain Transmission in vehicles

Vehicle Transmission

The Transmission is the vehicle's gearbox. The transmission components are always mounted straight on the engine so that their attached belt and gear system can effectively convert the combustion power produced by the engine into physical momentum.

How the Vehicle's Engine Operates:

Fuel is ignited in the combustion chamber of your vehicle’s engine.
As fuel ignites, the expanding gas and heat from the miniature explosion push the pistons inside your engine’s cylinders.
As the pistons are pushed, they move up and down, and spin your engine’s crankshaft.
The crankshaft then turns your car’s drive wheels. Through this mechanism, explosive energy is turned into mechanical energy.

A typical vehicle transmission is usually made up of five and six gear sets, and a series of gear trains that allows a driver to control how much power is delivered to the car without changing how fast the engine runs.

A vehicle's transmission helps to ensure that your engine spins at the right rate without going too fast or too slow for your needs. Also, it ensures that your wheels get the correct amount of power. Without a transmission, any vehicle would be difficult to start, stop, and would be completely unreliable.

How do Transmissions Work?

A transmission changes gears depending on car speed and accelerator input so that the engine’s RPM are kept appropriately low. This provides two benefits:

Fuel consumption is decreased.
The turning gears do not overload your engine.

Additionally, a transmission allows you to harness your vehicle’s engine energy when necessary. When you’re driving slowly, you can stay in a lower gear and avoid damaging your engine. When you must move quicker, you can switch gears to a higher level. By doing so, the transmission allows you to benefit from more of your vehicle's power, rotating the wheels a lot quicker.

Regardless of whether your vehicle has a manual or automatic transmission, all car gearboxes work in essentially the same way. The only difference is whether the driver must manually push the clutch to disconnect the engine and transmission and move the car into a new gear level.

A gear lever selects and moves gears to connect with one another. The driver operates the gear lever using the clutch control/pedal (if manual). Otherwise, this is performed automatically.
When engaged, a clutch or gear lever maneuvers Collar plates (also called clutch plates) into place to connect to larger gears, which are themselves connected to your car’s differential.
As the gear lever moves, different gears may be connected at different times. This alters which sets of gears turn and the power ratio delivered from the engine to wheels.

Ever wondered why your car’s engine might make a horrible sound if you engage the clutch incorrectly? It’s not because the gear teeth are mismatched, as most would think. In modern transmissions, gear teeth are positioned to be fully engaged at all times, even gears that aren’t technically in play. This is called Freewheeling. Instead, that horrible grinding sound occurs when the collar plate’s Dog Teeth or Connecting Notches don’t match up with the right holes in the side of a transmission gear.

Manual Transmission:

With a manual transmission, the clutch must be engaged such that the collar plate disconnects fully from transmission gears. This is why when engaging a manual transmission and making a change from one gear to another, a car might seem to lag or jump.

The clutch must then be maneuvered so that the collar plate lines up perfectly with the transmission gears you want to select. If done correctly, your car will immediately begin to drive at your selected gear.

Automatic Transmission:

An automatic transmission also features an automatic clutch. Instead of relying on human control, built-in sensors, processors, and actuators operate the clutch at the perfect moment based on your current speed, accelerator pressure, and other factors. This allows drivers to focus on other tasks on the road.

You can actually hear an automatic transmission operate as you drive a vehicle equipped with one. As you push down on the accelerator, your engine will become louder, and its built-in torque converter will sense the change and automatically shift to a higher gear.

In contrast, a car with a manual transmission will begin to slow and struggle as it is pushed to higher speeds until you switch gears.