Spinning Levers
1936 · Film · documentary · 9 min
An educational documentary short, commissioned by the Chevrolet Motor Company, explaining a manual car transmission works.
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Classic sources on gears:
- "Spinning Levers", a Jam Handy film.[1] This is a good basic intro to what gears really do.
- "Gearology" from Boston Gear.[2] This is what you need to know to buy gears.
The original article talks a lot about involute gears, but doesn't explain a key motivation for that tooth form. An involute gear will mesh with a straight-sided rack, which can be thought of as an infinite-radius gear. All gears which will mesh with the same rack will mesh with each other. So you only need N gear sizes, not N^2.
This only works for spur gears. Worm gears and helical gears are matched pairs.
[1] https://archive.org/details/0762_Spinning_Levers_04_45_20_00
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20100602093101/https://www.bostongear.com/pdf/gearology/all_gearology-chapters.pdf
Yes, "Around the Corner", one of many Jam Handy films made for Chevrolet. They're all on the Internet Archive, where they can be seen without ads.[1]
There's a whole series. "Spinning Levers" (transmissions), "Down the Gasoline Trail" (fuel), "Just a Spark" (ignition), "Tough Friends" (steel), "No Ghosts" (frames), and more.
[1] https://archive.org/details/0141_Around_the_Corner_M00267_08_00_41_00