How To Drive A Motorcar
A Key To The Subtleties Of Motoring

PRACTICE IN DOUBLE DECLUTCHING we were studying changing up, it is unnecessary to go through the other gear changes downwards. Exactly the same line of procedure is to be followed. In each case the layshaft wants speeding up in order to enable a silent change to be effected. On a four-speed gearbox the amount of speeding up requisite is naturally less than on a three-speed gearbox, and in some three-speed gearboxes, where the drop from top to second is a very big one, quite a large amount of speeding up is requisite to make a silent change at speed. How to Learn It This art of double declutching is the one question above all others which the writer would ask those of his readers who are not already quite masters of it carefully to study and successfully to learn. Superfi- cially, it seems a little difficult ; but when one masters it it is the acme of simplicity, and one’s feet and hand operate in perfect sympathy and without a shadow of thought from start to finish of the manœuvre. First of all try it quite slowly, sitting in the seat of the car without the engine running at all. Merely practise the proper series of events and practise them until they can be accomplished in the proper order without any- thing in the nature of a stop from one movement to the other. When this has been learnt, essay first of all to make the attempt on an easy gradient, whereon a change from the top gear is not even necessary. Do not do it at great speed. Try for sake of example first of all at 15 miles per hour. When fairly practised in the movement under these conditions, then try it on ordinary hills where a change is requisite, and when finally proficient it will be found that a change from top gear to third can be made just as easily and accurately at 30 miles per hour on a steep hill as at 15 miles per hour on a gentle grade—and always quietly to boot. Coasting Coasting is not really a portion of the work of gear- changing, but the question of how to coast may suit- ably be considered here, relatively to a long down grade 99 g2