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Post by silverdragon on Sept 25, 2014 6:19:20 GMT
In UK, I got used to the Bus Pre-select box, I can handle that, you select a gear, but it only changes when you let up off the throttle. The not having a clutch was hard to get, but then, with the brake steering column dropping through the floor right at the side of the pedals, its a strange floor anyway, so I had to get used to that first... Bit like learning the floor arrangement of a fork lift truck?...
Its only when the floor arrangement is like a car when I have problems.
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Post by OziRiS on Sept 25, 2014 6:32:57 GMT
depends on the brand, french auto's have a hard time giving up control.... Audi's are pretty decent. I find it odd that a french car would not surrender. They're overcompensating
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Post by the light works on Sept 25, 2014 14:04:49 GMT
In UK, I got used to the Bus Pre-select box, I can handle that, you select a gear, but it only changes when you let up off the throttle. The not having a clutch was hard to get, but then, with the brake steering column dropping through the floor right at the side of the pedals, its a strange floor anyway, so I had to get used to that first... Bit like learning the floor arrangement of a fork lift truck?... Its only when the floor arrangement is like a car when I have problems. my beef is when people allow learners to get in the habit of using one foot on the brake and the other on the throttle. it makes it pretty much impossible for them to transition easily to a manual transmission - besides being hard on brake shoes. - and in a cabover, it becomes dangerous because they have to get their foot behind the steering column to get it to the brake.
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 26, 2014 7:55:53 GMT
Left foot braking is an art form that has to be learnt in UK... and its bloody dangerous, because if you have the foot on the brake and try to go for a gearchange, you suddenly brake..... That is if you are used to manual.
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Post by the light works on Sept 26, 2014 14:52:55 GMT
Left foot braking is an art form that has to be learnt in UK... and its bloody dangerous, because if you have the foot on the brake and try to go for a gearchange, you suddenly brake..... That is if you are used to manual. you mean people are required to learn it in the UK, or if you want to do it you have to learn on your own?
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Post by The Urban Mythbuster on Sept 26, 2014 16:53:38 GMT
In UK, I got used to the Bus Pre-select box, I can handle that, you select a gear, but it only changes when you let up off the throttle. The not having a clutch was hard to get, but then, with the brake steering column dropping through the floor right at the side of the pedals, its a strange floor anyway, so I had to get used to that first... Bit like learning the floor arrangement of a fork lift truck?... Its only when the floor arrangement is like a car when I have problems. my beef is when people allow learners to get in the habit of using one foot on the brake and the other on the throttle. it makes it pretty much impossible for them to transition easily to a manual transmission - besides being hard on brake shoes. - and in a cabover, it becomes dangerous because they have to get their foot behind the steering column to get it to the brake. I was taught on an automatic with the "your left foot is asleep" philosophy. The right foot does everything, except in extreme situations when you might want to use both feet on the brake pedal.
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Post by the light works on Sept 26, 2014 23:09:27 GMT
my beef is when people allow learners to get in the habit of using one foot on the brake and the other on the throttle. it makes it pretty much impossible for them to transition easily to a manual transmission - besides being hard on brake shoes. - and in a cabover, it becomes dangerous because they have to get their foot behind the steering column to get it to the brake. I was taught on an automatic with the "your left foot is asleep" philosophy. The right foot does everything, except in extreme situations when you might want to use both feet on the brake pedal. mine was simply, left foot only works the clutch, the park brake, and the high beams. no need for both feet on the brake pedal when you can push it to the floor with just one.
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 27, 2014 9:28:17 GMT
Left foot braking is an art form that has to be learnt in UK... and its bloody dangerous, because if you have the foot on the brake and try to go for a gearchange, you suddenly brake..... That is if you are used to manual. you mean people are required to learn it in the UK, or if you want to do it you have to learn on your own? You should be taught to NEVER brake with left foot whilst learning in UK.
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Post by the light works on Sept 27, 2014 14:23:40 GMT
you mean people are required to learn it in the UK, or if you want to do it you have to learn on your own? You should be taught to NEVER brake with left foot whilst learning in UK. so people who want to do it have to learn on their own.
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 28, 2014 9:00:51 GMT
That pretty much the score... if you are not taught to do something there is less chance you will. I only left-foot-brake when in Track conditions... rally driving, or hard brake-throttle-brake corners on race tracks where the gear arrangement is index sequential or paddle shift. And then again, only on those corners that need it.
This is also why I have some problems with certain "Driving" games where a wheel and pedals are required, I cant set them up the way I want them.
I would not left-foot brake on normal roads.... ever..... I should never get teh vehicle into a condition where I should need to anyway?....
I dont know why anyone would want to teach that for normal road driving either.
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Post by kharnynb on Sept 28, 2014 9:29:55 GMT
same, over here that would be an auto-fail on examday even.
As for automatics, there is one drivingschool in all of helsinki that has a automat, it's for handicapped people that are physically unable to operate a clutch.
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Post by silverdragon on Sept 28, 2014 9:38:13 GMT
I am still trying to find an Automatic Only driving school in Manchester around here.... I know of one Handicap driving school that is happy to send an instructor to any person who has an adapted car... They dont supply the car, as peoples handicaps are not all the same. no one size fits all car exists?...
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Post by c64 on Sept 28, 2014 10:33:13 GMT
In UK, I got used to the Bus Pre-select box, I can handle that, you select a gear, but it only changes when you let up off the throttle. The not having a clutch was hard to get, but then, with the brake steering column dropping through the floor right at the side of the pedals, its a strange floor anyway, so I had to get used to that first... Bit like learning the floor arrangement of a fork lift truck?... Its only when the floor arrangement is like a car when I have problems. There were a number of cars made in he 60s and 70s with a fancy gearshift mechanism. The most famous ones were the Citroën ID with the "gear robot" known as "the Queen of Citroën" and the NSU RO 80. The Queen has a selector which looks just like the US style automatic transmission selector at the steering wheel. You preselect the next gear and then release the accelerator. The car then decides if the selected gear is OK and then engages the clutch, switches the gear and then releases the clutch. Its a very complicated mechanism, partially hydraulic using the main hydraulics for the suspension and power brake and partially using the vacuum of the air intake manifold of the engine. There is no electronics involved, everything is computed by pressure differences and it is a real nightmare to adjust everything just right in order to make it work OK. Even a clogged air filter spoils the system and you had to visit a garage very often. Nowadays you need to find an expert who is still familiar with the system or become your own expert in order to keep driving it. In the mid 1960s, NSU had developed the RO80, the first car using a Wankel engine. They took a modern 4-speed gearbox from a major gearbox factory but the car didn't work well with it. The gearbox factory blamed the lightweight engine and the NSU engineers blamed the gearbox factory. So NSU decided to produce their own gearboxes. With no experience, they decided to make a classic 3-speed gearbox which was already almost obsolete back then. Then they had figured that the gearbox factory was right and the car won't work properly. So they had tossed in a torque converter as well and added a pneumatic actuator to the clutch they kept. So the NSU Ro80 was a 3-speed "half-automatic" with a sensor in the stick shift to engage the clutch. While moving off is extra easy just as with a real automatic transmission, changing gears can be tricky since you need to tilt the top of the stick shift to engage the clutch. The clutch doesn't engage depending how you operate the stick shift. Also you may not touch the top of the stick shift while driving or the engine will rev up (no limiter) and when releasing the stick shift, the clutch reengages. And the greater the RPM, the faster it engages. Even with the brake discs sitting on the gearbox and very thick and sturdy drive shafts connecting them with the wheels, releasing the stick shift with the engine revved very high can turn the drive shafts into corkscrews.
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Post by c64 on Sept 28, 2014 10:50:04 GMT
Here is "the Queen":
It also has a nice story of a major design screw-up.
The designers demanded the flat "snout" of the car and the engineers picked a flat boxer engine and the design of the car was set. Then it had turned out that the boxer engine won't work well. Not enough power and they disliked the sound of the VW bug. So they had to go for a straight 4 cylinder but there wasn't enough space in the front engine bay. They couldn't put the engine in sideways like it is common today for a FWD car in time so they had to turn the entire engine around making it sit behind the gearbox and move the firewall into the passenger cell. This is the reason why the driver has very little leg room and is sitting almost in the middle of the passenger cell and the odd space for the spare wheel. To ease the problem of the leg room, they came up with a power brake using the hydraulics of the suspension. There is a "game show buzzer button" as a brake pedal operating a hydraulic valve. Personally I don't like it since you need to move your foot far towards the seat to reach it and there is absolutely no feedback of the brakes.
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Post by c64 on Sept 28, 2014 11:06:38 GMT
And here is the NSU Ro 80:
Its bad reputation for engine failures made it a complete failure even if the problem was fully solved in 1971. But this isn't that sad since fuel economy and the need of a catalytic converter would have killed this concept a decade later anyway.
This car seems to have a bad muffler and either there is a window open or the door seals are defective. If the car is in a good condition, all you hear is the rush of air at high speeds. This is what was mentioned in the first video. The swoosh of the air over the cars body masks the engine sound but you don't register this as loud so you get the impression that the car becomes quieter and quieter the faster you go.
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Post by the light works on Sept 28, 2014 13:57:54 GMT
That pretty much the score... if you are not taught to do something there is less chance you will. I only left-foot-brake when in Track conditions... rally driving, or hard brake-throttle-brake corners on race tracks where the gear arrangement is index sequential or paddle shift. And then again, only on those corners that need it. This is also why I have some problems with certain "Driving" games where a wheel and pedals are required, I cant set them up the way I want them. I would not left-foot brake on normal roads.... ever..... I should never get teh vehicle into a condition where I should need to anyway?.... I dont know why anyone would want to teach that for normal road driving either. I have never been in a situation where I needed to transition from brake to throttle or vice versa that quickly. the only time I have ever left foot braked has been when pre-loading the turbocharger for quicker takeoffs - and that is pointless in my current work truck; or applying load to the engine to try to bring up the temperature a little quicker.
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Post by c64 on Sept 28, 2014 14:35:48 GMT
That pretty much the score... if you are not taught to do something there is less chance you will. I only left-foot-brake when in Track conditions... rally driving, or hard brake-throttle-brake corners on race tracks where the gear arrangement is index sequential or paddle shift. And then again, only on those corners that need it. This is also why I have some problems with certain "Driving" games where a wheel and pedals are required, I cant set them up the way I want them. I would not left-foot brake on normal roads.... ever..... I should never get teh vehicle into a condition where I should need to anyway?.... I dont know why anyone would want to teach that for normal road driving either. I have never been in a situation where I needed to transition from brake to throttle or vice versa that quickly. the only time I have ever left foot braked has been when pre-loading the turbocharger for quicker takeoffs - and that is pointless in my current work truck; or applying load to the engine to try to bring up the temperature a little quicker. Gokarts use one pedal for each foot, left brake, right accelerator.
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Post by the light works on Sept 28, 2014 14:56:55 GMT
I have never been in a situation where I needed to transition from brake to throttle or vice versa that quickly. the only time I have ever left foot braked has been when pre-loading the turbocharger for quicker takeoffs - and that is pointless in my current work truck; or applying load to the engine to try to bring up the temperature a little quicker. Gokarts use one pedal for each foot, left brake, right accelerator. can't remember if the go karts I have driven have had that pedal configuration or not. - they were a bigger model than the standard model.
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Post by c64 on Sept 28, 2014 20:23:59 GMT
Gokarts use one pedal for each foot, left brake, right accelerator. can't remember if the go karts I have driven have had that pedal configuration or not. - they were a bigger model than the standard model. I've never seen any go kart where you are able to move your feet around to switch pedals. All classes for go kart racing are required to have one foot on the brake pedal all times. They always have one pedal for each foot. If there is a manual clutch, there is a ring to pull at the steering wheel. Most ride on lawnmowers are different, they use left=clutch, right=brake and a lever (or an automatic regulator) as accelerator.
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Post by the light works on Sept 29, 2014 2:34:29 GMT
can't remember if the go karts I have driven have had that pedal configuration or not. - they were a bigger model than the standard model. I've never seen any go kart where you are able to move your feet around to switch pedals. All classes for go kart racing are required to have one foot on the brake pedal all times. They always have one pedal for each foot. If there is a manual clutch, there is a ring to pull at the steering wheel. Most ride on lawnmowers are different, they use left=clutch, right=brake and a lever (or an automatic regulator) as accelerator. the one I drove was not a racing cart. I forget whether it had a pedal on each side of the steering wheel, or both pedals on the right. the self drive cars they have at disneyland only have ONE pedal. push to go, release to stop. here, riding lawnmowers have the brake/clutch on the left, and unless they are a hydrostatic, nothing on the right. larger tractors will have clutch on the left, and split brakes on the right. then often a small throttle lever below the brakes.
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