OK here's an oddball one - sifting gears, how many variations have you tried?

[oldGSfan]

Here's my list:

• Granny taught me to shift in a 40's Farmall tractor, It was an H pattern, 4 speed, can't remember where reverse was.
• Lots of other standard 4 speeds, some with reverse up and to the left, down to the right. Fiat 124 had weird lift-up to get int R, far right and down on the 5 speed. Changed later for push down.
• 3 on the tree - old Fords and Chryslers. Sort of liked that action, felt like I was giving it the business, you know, the old up-yours haha.
• Honda 70/90/110 where you just poke the shifter down for more gears, up to top for neutral. Dual range a bonus.
• VW clutchless manual (auto stidk_, slam it into the next gear with a graunchy gear crunching sound, ugh. Probably because the ones I drove were clapped.
• Motorcycles with 1 down, 4 or 5 up. Too many to remember. That and the H pattern 4 is the most common other than column or floor mounted automatics.
• Mini bikes with 'torque converters'. Twist and go till the uncovered centrifugal clutch catches your pant leg and grinds your shin down to a pulp (ask me how I know)
• Right-side shift British bikes and the occasional Harley with right-side shift. Norton is one up, 3 down 'GP' shifting. Others (BSA, Triumph) were down for first, up for higher gears, just on the right side.
• Jeeps with 4 sticks. Like the Zeppelin song but not really. Some sticks used for pumps, wood splitters, saws.
• CVT leave them in gear and go to sleep
• Paddle shift 7 speed Nissan G37, or 8 speed ZF. Umm, leave them in gear and go to sleep.

Never tried-ums - those old bikes with the gear shift on the left side of the tank and the foot clutch. Yikes!

[zuluwiz]

My first bike was an old Kawa, Neutral on the bottom, up for first, up for second
, etc.

[Baatfam]

I've got one very few people have tried, Tom.
Austin Healey 100-4 BN1 (first gen) used a 4 speed from right hand drive Austin sedan.
But since first gear was so low, they blocked it off, so the car only used 2nd, 3rd, and 4rth, with an electric overdrive.
And since it was a right hand drive trans, in a left hand drive car, the pattern was reversed.
So if you followed all that, the pattern was right/down for first, up/left for second, and down left for third. Hit the switch on the dash for overdrive.
Don't remember where reverse was.

The car:

[Redman]

65 Mustang (stright 6 cylinder) I had 1971-72-73 was typical 3 speed on the floor. (Spring loaded to the left and forward for Reverse, is my faint recollection.)

Wifes 1975 Datsun B-210 was four on the floor, and reverse was spring loaded one way AND had to push down into the floor or something like that.

But then later, 1979, about no expereince with any motorcycle, getting my first bike (KZ400), I recall looking at the legend on side of engine/transmission

5
4-
3-
2-
N-
1-

ANd trying to figure out what that ment. I thought it meant the lever had 6 positions.
Salesman's explanation was "one down and 4 up". (as if that was a complete explanation).
I dont recall how I figured it out, amungst trying to remember which is clutch and which is brake and which is other brake - but thats another story.

[marvinsc]

My most unusual was a SAAB that came into my Vocational Auto Mechanics class. 5 on the column. We played with it so much that the hydraulic clutch gave up. One of many that drove in that got pushed back out........LOL

[Rob S.]

Always sift your gears before riding to get the lumps out.

[Brendan W]

The Renault 4 had an inline four motor with FWD so the gearbox lived out in front of the motor.
The gear shift was at the top of the dash and went forward over the motor and down to the box.
Reverse was top left, first bottom left, second top middle and so on.
Another feature was that the timing chain was hard against the firewall so the motor and box had to come out to change unless ..... you had a tin snips

[Cipher]

The Renault 4 had an inline four motor with FWD so the gearbox lived out in front of the motor.
The gear shift was at the top of the dash and went forward over the motor and down to the box.
Reverse was top left, first bottom left, second top middle and so on.
Another feature was that the timing chain was hard against the firewall so the motor and box had to come out to change unless ..... you had a tin snips

Renault alliance had a heavy long fork at the end of its lever to tranny. It would open over time just enough to prevent reverse actuation.

[GregT]

I've done quite a bit of vintage bike riding - hand shift but also hand clutch. If you're good, it's shift without using the clutch. Left hand "across the tank" to rhs lever.

Possibly unique here in having driven a pre-selector gearbox car. An Armstrong-Siddely. Lever in a quadrant under the wheel. Move it to select whichever gear you want next.
Then when you wish to shift, kick the clutch pedal and it engages. Early semi-auto. In use prewar and post until the full auto box was perfected. Favoured for race cars as you didn't have to take a hand off the wheel to shift, you could pre-select on a straight. Bit heavy and sapped some power too so went out of favour.

[oldGSfan]

Below is an Excelsior with cool linkage and shifter. This is at Drager's up in Anacortes WA. A ton of really cool bikes and other stuff to check out. The son of the owner is a friend of a friend. His grandmother Margeret Drager was an AMA pro, no mean feat. She would ride all over on any type of bike. Worth a read: https://www.dragers.com/motorcycle-h...argaret-drager

https://youtube.com/shorts/Houc_nwfiGU?feature=shared

[Don R]

I had an old front motor dragster, it needed a neutral safety. It had a round shift rod bent into an L for a handle, it came through a hole in the steering bracket, I welded a pair of tabs on the rod and cut a slot into the bracket. To start it you had to slide the first tab through the slot to Neutral and turn the lever over to make another tab push a neutral safety switch made from a brake light switch. to go you turned the handle up, tabs all the way back out through the slot and down for low, and jam it forward for drive. All the way back through the slots for reverse.
Our current car has a Hurst quarter stick with an air shifter. Put it in low, hold the trans brake button down so it locks in R and L at the same time, stage, mat the throttle pedal and when the start tree activates, let go of the button and go for an almost 3G ride. 0 to 60 in a little over a second. 1/4 mile on a good day 7.38 at 182.

[Don R]

I had a Nash Metropolitan with three on the tree but it was a ball and socket coming out of the dash. It took a limp wristed flip as you went past the neutral position from 1 to 2, if you didn't do the little flip it ground gears every time. I guess it was an N pattern from 1 to 2, then 3 was normal straight down.

My 40 chevy coupe had the push buttons from a typewriter shift when I got it. Sadly, the Hemi and Torqueflite were long gone. It got a small block Muncie 4 speed. My current 69 firebird project has a turbo 400 with a gear vendors overdrive, probably a lot like the one in that MG shown above. It turns out they are bulletproof. I can use it for OD or split shift it.

[dgates1]

I have a 1961 Swisher Ride King lawn mower with a Tecumseh motor that my Grandpa bought new. This thing was like the original zero-turn mower. I mowed the grass around the farmhouse many times as a kid with this thing. I had it running a couple summers ago.

The front wheel is the only thing that is driven by an elaborate belt system from the top of the motor that drives a gearbox with a chain down to the sprocket on the axle. You have to turn it 180* to go backwards. You engage a lever forward under the steering wheel to put tension on the belt, feathering it to make small/slow moves. There is also one lever you can rotate for Low/High gear that switches the belt routing for a higher pully ratio. There is another lever with belts at the bottom to drive the blades.

Pretty cool little mower that my wife wants me to get rid of.... sigh. It's too nostalgic for me! LOL. I tell her "someday I'm gonna strip it down and restore it".

[dgates1]

Here's a good video on the drive system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCpCJLuavfA

[dorkburger]

The Hurst equipped 4 speed shifter connected to a Muncie M20 trans and big block Chevy was my favorite. I've done the typical 4 / 5 peeds in various pedestrian and commercial trucks over the years. The 1986 Ford Cargo 6000 truck I drove for work for a number of years had the most vague shifting and longest linkage I've experienced.

As GregT mentioned, the cable actuated hand clutch / hand shift like on my little scooter is fun.