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Watch: How a Manual ’98 GTI’s Manual Works

The manual transmission is one of those things that reasonably simple in theory but gets a lot more complicated when it’s in pieces on the garage floor and you’re sitting in the corner ugly-crying.

So many parts, so many things interacting, so much oil! But the guys from Engineering Explained and the Humble Mechanic YouTube channels are here to help explain it all.

For me, I think the real revelation came when I understood that the gears on the output shaft freewheel when they aren’t in use. I always understood the theory of manuals, but my best reference point for visible gears was a bicycle, so I couldn’t quite resolve that with how many gears were touching in a car’s transmission.

But watching the Humble Mechanic move the syncromesh up and down, and watching the shafts rotate and the unused gears spin freely really made me understand how this rat’s nest of gears kind of works.

And the reason the 5-speed is out of the GTI? The Humble Mechanic is replacing a flywheel and a clutch. So, naturally, the whole thing has to come apart.

The post Watch: How a Manual ’98 GTI’s Manual Works appeared first on VWVortex.



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