Shift into Neutral to save TO Bearing?

[LL - NY]

FWIW, my 200Q had it's TO bearing fail, while the clutch still had useful
life. As the 2nd owner, I can only imagine what the P.O. did. So, I, for
one, release the clutch at lights.

LL - NY

On 12/30/07, Ben Swann <benswann at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Well this is my opinion based on what I know about how the mechanism works
> and from what
> other engineers have told me.
>
> You are better to take it out of gear while sitting at the light, since
> the application
> of force is causing the bearing to turn continuously with a load.  Not
> totally bad, but
> will definitely wear over time quicker than if no load on the
> bearing.  During a shift
> the load is only momentary – perhaps a half a second at most, so a tiny
> bit of wear.
> Now you are sitting at a light for 30 seconds – that is about 60 times the
> wear.
>
> The worst thing to do is to ride the clutch.   This is where the driver
> keeps the car in
> gear using the clutch to hold the car in position like on a hill than to
> stop
> completely, depress clutch and use the brake.  If I see someone doing
> this, it makes me
> cringe and if someone – namely my S.O. is doing this in a car I maintain,
> they will get
> severe criticism and a big lecture about how doing this can wear a clutch
> out in no
> time.
>
> If you have ever had to do a clutch job because the release bearing
> grenaded, you would
> probably take the extra moment to take it out of gear – for me it is
> second nature.  The
> last several jobs involving clutches I've seen were actually a result of
> failed bearings
> with the clutch still having a lot of life.  One job was when the clutch
> had been
> recently replaced and was like brand new.  Amazing that someone did all
> that work and
> didn't take a few more $ and 15 min. to install a new release bearing!
>
> Ben
>
> [Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:19:18 -0500
> From: "David Ullrich" <david.ullrich at gmail.com>
> Subject: Shift into Neutral to save TO Bearing?
> To: "quattro at audifans.com" <quattro at audifans.com>
> Message-ID:
>         <f4c312c80712301119o2a35b7dby2f7c7b0660f774d2 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> I wanted to get other's opinions on this. When sitting at a stoplight,
> should a manual tranie be shifted into neutral and the clutch released or
> should it be left in 1st with the clutch FULLY depressed? I've never put
> my
> cars into neutral at lights, but have also heard others say I am putting
> extra wear on my throwout bearing causing premature wear. True? Untrue? A
> real problem? I've never had to replace a TO bearing before a car needed a
> full clutch job, but Ive only had one car that ever needed a new clutch
> and
> that car had over 225,000 miles. All of my other cars have gone over
> 150,000
> on the original clutch.
>
> --
> David G. Ullrich
> Audiless for now]
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