dcandel

My wife has been bugging me to teach her how for 4 years. I'm running out of excuses. Anybody got a list of excuses I can use.

envyz06

i taught my fiancé, she surprisingly did much better than my cousin and brother!

Vette Moto

Unfortunately, no lesson on the Z yet. The monster stage 2 clutch with tick master makes the clutch pedal feel like an intense calf workout, not to mention the lightened flywheel, all of which makes the car not so friendly for 1st timers.

Vette Moto

a good tip would to find a remote small incline and have the person do a stop and go simulation on the incline. really helps people learn where the clutch engages (the sweet spot). if they can master stop and go on an incline, everything else is cake.

calvins

Thanks guys. I never thought about engaging the clutch without any gas. That's probably an excellent exercise!

As for the yelling, I expect to have a whole lot of holes in my tongue... May have to replace the clutch...

Yeah, the incline practice comes after the flatlands though.

When I was a novice with a standard, about 45 years ago... <rolling eyes> I lived in NW PA and a LOT of hills around. Whenever I'd get stopped on a good sized hill and somebody would get close, I'd just set the e-brake, put the car in 1st, shut the car off, walk back and tell them I was a new driver to standards... usually never had to ask them to back up... lol

Evil-Twin

Ive taught a few people to drive a stick including my wife. What I have found to be beneficial is to explain how the clutch actually works, and why it acts very similar to a brake if you engage it too quickly. Also if you allow them to slowly engage the clutch to the point where it just touches the flywheel, but does not move the car.they learn where the actual clutch plate to flywheel is, and exactly what is going on and why the flywheel is moving at 600 rpm at idle and the clutch plate is not turning at all. if you can get them to allow the car to idle and without adding any gas. get the clutch plate to the flywheel without stalling the car, then they will understand how it all works. BTW driving a stick comes easily to people with a technical mind. its harder for those that are not technical, and my approach to them is trying to get them to understand what is going on.

DeeGee

Hope it went well. You have to be taught how to drive an A4 over here. All cars are manual so where did I go wrong?

calvins

Thanks Dee Gee but we have yet to start.

As long as she doesn't panic and freak out it shouldn't be too bad. We'll see. I'm not going to push the issue but I think it'd be a good idea. What happens if we're out somewhere in it and I can't drive for some reason.... <rhetorical question>

Over on this side of the pond, driving a manual is becoming a lost skill. I think everyone should at least be able to drive one even if they don't like 'em.

RetiredSFC 97

Step son refuses to drive a stick. I have a M6

JetMechZ16

Taught my kids in my truck, plenty of torque for them to learn the "let clutch out with no gas" once they got that down smoothly we could progress from there. The hard part was getting them used to the length of the truck, having to take turns wider and avoid dropping the back end into ditches or running over curbs. There was alot of yelling about that part afew times when my daughter had us in a ditch.

calvins

I think you need to go back and take remedial reading 101! I have ZERO problem with my wife using ANYTHING that we have. I'm going to teach her how to drive the SOB! I get reamed enough when I may deserve it, I don't need any more! Sheesh!

calvins

I think that one tip is going to make life a LOT easier. I just never thought of doing it. The Vette is the only manual shift that we own so that's what she's gonna learn on. Not too shabby.

QCVette

I learned on a '68 427 Corvette. It was my dad's friend and he had me run up to about 3000 rpm and let out the clutch. Perhaps that wasn't the best method, but I really liked it.

I taught my wife to drive a stick with my '68 Firebird with a 462 ci motor and 4.56 gears. It was cammed and with dual quads it would idle at about 1100 rpm. You couldn't stall it. It would just chug off with no throttle, or ok, or light up the tires. Other gear changes were easy, but until she got used to matching rpm/throttle a little she would leave about 20 ft of rubber. She got used to it pretty quick.

The idea of a parking lot and not using throttle seems like a great idea. It would let you feel the clutch engagement point and get used to it.

Good luck.

supercool

I've tought several people how to drive a manual transmission car, including my wife and children. The parking lot incline or back country roads is a good place to start. Main thing to tell someone is once car starts to buck push the clutch back in. Most poeple make the mistake of popping the clutch when it bucks and it stalls or bucks worse etc.. But if you quickly depress the clutch once it starts to buck it stops and the car is now rolling and they can then feather it back out.. After they get the basics, and I really mean basics,like around the block a few times ,starting out in first and shifting a few gears go back home and MAKE them take it by themselves..You don't yell and they have no pressure of them watching you..I've literally got out of the car and said take it you are good to go and walked into the house...Worked every time !!!

GySgt1811

I let my granddaughter drive my M6. She's a very responsible young lady (obviously doesn't take after me...) and listens quite well. She's also very literal. I explained the "1st to 4th" crap and told her to take 1st gear to 3k rpm to bypass the dreaded lock out. She did, but didn't take her foot off of the gas pedal between shifts...because I didn't tell her to.

We were both amazed at the patch she got in 2nd gear.

Good girl, good fun, she did fine.

Gunny John

calvins

lol - I had that 1-4th crap programmed out when I had it tuned.

jdot

I'm not educated enough to know about the "lock out" in the manual trans on Vettes. Would someone take a minute and educate an old man as to what this is/means/operates? My cars have always been autos so DW could drive them but I'd like to know in case I want to change to a stick.

GySgt1811

idot,

This was something that Corvette thought they had to introduce in order to beat the Corporate gas guzzler tax. Basically, when you start in 1st gear and let the rpm's get to (roughly) 1K to 2K an electrical device kicks in and prevents you from shifting to any gear but 4th. No, honest, I did not make that up. To beat it shift into 2nd before the little "1st to 4th" light comes on -or- what I do, take 1st gear beyond 2k rpm before shifting. As one of the guys said before, it can be tuned out and there is a jumper wire fix for about $20. As for me, I just wind that puppy beyond 2k every time...sorta blows the saving gas idea, what?

Some of the other guys may have a more technical answer, but basically it's just a pain where ever.

Regards

Gunny John

Socko

I did teach my gf in high school to drive stick in my camaro. It was painful for me to comprehend how someone could have been in a stick car and have no idea how they work. I had no luck explaining how a clutch worked to her. I even showed her the front brake and drew it on a piece of paper, i think it just confused her more. The most useful things i think i hit on were:
1. engauge the clutch with no gas
2. don't half *** the clutch, she would let the clutch out the car would jerk a bit and she would push it back in. smooth release is about 90% of driving a stick v8.
3. use the parking brake on a really steep hill(she actually had no issue with using the parking brake and releasing it as the clutch engauged, which confused me greatly)
4. be patient as hell!!!

I did this when I was ready to replace my clutch anyways. That helped make it not so painful knowing i had a new clutch in the box at home i was going to install in a couple weeks.

Oddly enough she did end up buying a stick car and was really good at smoothly driving stick.

As when i got my first car it was stick and my dad went with me around the block and didn't have much to say cause i theoretically knew what a clutch was so i just had to learn how to smoothly engauge it, but it took me 5 minutes to be able to drive it. It took my gf like 2-3 hours to get to a point that she could have driven the car without killing herself or someone else. It was a painful process at 17 when I hadn't learned to be patient with people.