I heard this was bad because over time it can bend the forks, etc. What's the real deal? I find it hard to believe that even a few lbs. of arm could bend a shift fork...

I think it was Edwin that said it first, so where do you get the info to back that up from?

I rest my hand on the shifter all the time, espesially in 3rd and 4th.

 

You may not think that resting your hand on the shifter will do any damage ,it will . The pressure of your had causes the syncos to spin and therefore increased wear. This will take some time .
Shouldn't both hands be on the steering wheel Ha HA

 

Gotcha... Thanks!

 

i have my hand on the ebrake usually

 

since no one was able to explain why after this long and everyone wants to know WHY (when told to stop, just listen, don't ask why... it wastes time), I spent over 30 minutes drawing this stupid little drawing:

 

pic is NOT to scale, pic does NOT represent fully wtf happens inside a tranny
everything pink is the gear selection assembly inside the tranny
the thing wedged between the 2 gears at the upper shift is the synchro assembly, what rests on it (the pink thing) is the "gear end" of the shift fork... where it leads to is the tail end of the tranny where it's hooked up to the shifter

top one is NORMAL operation
second one is what happens when you rest your hands on the shifter... you grind away the shift fork and thousands of miles down the road, you find it harder to shift!
so in the third one, because you found it hard to shift, you slam the shifter in gear... and see what happens!!!!

 

if you don't understand why, do a search for my post about synchro operation a few months ago... I'm NOT going to explain how it works again

better yet.. just listen to me and NOT get into those bad habits

 

Thanks Edwin, it all makes sense now, but after an extensive search, I couldn't find your synchro post. Mind pointing me in the right direction?

 

i wonder if this may be the cause of all the broken shift forks all those MP3 owners are complaining about....

 

According to Edwin, they reported shift issues due to "fast and hard" shifting.

 

http://www.protegeclub.com/forum/sho...&postid=109580

 

Yep, after Edwin told me the 1st time, I changed my habit to resting my hand on the E-Brake.

 

Thanks Edwin, I've changed my ways!

 

Here is a link showing you how a manual transmission work ...

Don't know if it's help in this thread, but I found it interesting!

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/transmission.htm

 

that's just the tip of the iceberg... while it shows how the stuff is generally layed out, the terminology, and most importantly the diagrams depicting the gear and synchro operations are all wrong.. my chicken scratch drawing is many times more accurate and detailed than that! the animated drawing is actually well done though