The driven element is much narrower and is located on the recesses of the gearbox shaft, which, in turn, create conditions for its rigid coupling and allow it to move along the shaft. During operation, both of these disks, under the pressure of springs and the release support, are closely connected and supply a torque impulse from the engine to the input shaft.

Important! The clutch does not require special maintenance. It is enough to follow the recommendations for correct driving.

If you disengage them (press the clutch pedal), the torque is cut off, and the passive disk, therefore, stops rotating with the shaft.

How the car clutch works

The essence of the operation of both hydraulic and friction clutches can be summarized as follows. If the coupling is released, the driven rod is clamped between the active disk and the wheel. When a motorist presses on the gas pedal, friction occurs in the structure and the torque impulse is directed from the wheel of the internal combustion engine to the power of the car.
When the clutch pedal is depressed, the elements of the unit begin to work and interact with each other. As a result, the passive shaft moves away from the clamping force. To ensure this result, the unit cable comes into play. The release bearing assembly is affected by the device's shutdown fork, as a result of which the bearing moves toward the flywheel along the shaft. Then the bearing assembly presses on the pressure spring bars.

Did you know? If there were no clutch, driving in reverse would be impossible.

If the unit's spring lobes bend toward the flywheel, the outer edge is pressed away from the pressure plate, unloading it. At the same time, the tangential spirals release the active disc, and no torque impulse is transmitted. When the driver releases the pedal, the active disc begins to work with the passive pulley through the diaphragm spring. It is also worth mentioning that this element also comes into contact with the flywheel when the pedal is pressed.

Video: how the car clutch works

Then the rotating impulse is transmitted from the engine to the gearbox due to the created friction force. So, we have clearly talked about the structure and essence of the clutch. As you can see, this device is of great importance for transport.

A car's clutch is one of the main components of the transmission. It is this that takes the brunt of the impact when changing gears, protects the car from overloads and dampens vibrations. How does a clutch work on a car, how does it work, what functions does it perform? The answers to all these questions are further in our article.

Characteristic

A car's clutch is a unit designed to briefly disconnect the engine from the gearbox and smoothly connect them when changing gears.

On most modern cars, this element is located between the gearbox and the internal combustion engine.

Car clutch device

By its design, this part is a whole system consisting of the following elements:

What is this node for?

As you know, the engine rotates constantly, but the wheels do not. And so that every time you stop the car you don’t have to turn off the engine, you should turn off one or another gear on the gearbox, that is, activate “neutral” by pressing the clutch pedal. During subsequent movement, this unit is able to again combine the rotating engine and the stationary gearbox, smoothly connecting the shafts to each other. Thanks to this, the car starts moving smoothly.

Dry clutch

The clutch circuit of a car is almost always the same (clutch housing; clutch release bearing; clutch release fork support shaft sleeve; clutch release fork; pressure spring; driven disk; flywheel; pressure disk; clutch housing; gearbox input shaft; cable; pedal clutch; clutch release bearing clutch; plate connecting the clutch housing to the pressure plate; damper spring; driven disc hub). However, this node has its own characteristics. Some manufacturers equip machines with different types of components. One of the most popular options at the moment is friction. With this type of clutch, the process of transmitting torque forces is carried out due to friction forces. The latter act on the contact surfaces of the driven and driving parts. That is, the transfer of forces occurs directly between the internal combustion engine disk and the vehicle’s gearbox. This type of clutch is also called “dry”. It is especially often installed on all-wheel drive jeeps.

"Wet" type

There is also a so-called wet clutch type. How is it different from the first option? It contains torque converter oil between the two discs. Also, on a “wet” unit there is no such rigid clutch between the driven and driving disks.

Compared to its analogues, it has a number of advantages. Among them, it is necessary to note the good protection of the car from overheating, as well as the high reliability of the mechanisms. However, the “wet” element also has its disadvantages. Its main disadvantage is its high cost, so most budget cars do not use such a system.

Purpose

What functions does a car's clutch perform? First of all, this unit is necessary for the car to move away smoothly, as we said at the beginning of the article. If the motor and gearbox are rigidly connected, then after engaging the gear the car jerks forward sharply, since all the power from the engine is transferred to the gearbox at once. Improper use of the clutch causes mechanical damage to parts and also leads to frequent engine stalls when starting off.

Thanks to the operation of the clutch, namely the sliding of the drive and driven discs, the torque increases gradually. The driving forces do not increase immediately, and therefore the car starts off very smoothly and softly.

Also, a clutch box is necessary for easy gear shifting while the vehicle is moving. When a car is traveling at a certain speed, which is steadily increasing or decreasing, there is a need to shift to an upshift or downshift, which is facilitated by the timely separation of the shafts of the assembly between the transmission and the engine. Otherwise, higher efforts would be required to change gears, which would further provoke rapid wear of the gearbox and its other mechanisms. In particular, when the speed is forced, the load on the gear teeth increases. Thus, the clutch also serves the function of reducing the load that acts on the surface of the gearbox parts, which makes it easier to switch from one gear to another. In this case, the gearbox (a photo of this mechanism is presented below) suffers minimal loads from the engine. And this significantly increases the service life of gearbox parts, the price of which is sometimes too high.

In addition, the clutch’s operation is aimed at reducing the level of loads acting on the gearbox during emergency braking of the vehicle. When a car suddenly slows down, the rotational torque of its wheels decreases significantly. But since the transmission is connected to the motor at this time, it has rotational inertia and maintains the same speed. This can lead to significant damage to its parts. Overload protection itself is carried out by slipping of the driven and driving disks. In this case, the torque is stabilized as much as possible.

How does it work?

The principle of operation of a car clutch is the friction of several discs. The action of this unit is to tightly compress the working surfaces of the flywheel and the pressure surface of the basket. Below we will look at this point in more detail.

When the unit is in working condition, under the action of the release spring, the basket disc fits tightly to the clutch and presses it against the flywheel. In this case, the input shaft enters the splined coupling. Next, torque forces are transferred to it from the clutch disc. When the driver presses the pedal, he engages the release bearing. The latter presses the spring. Thus, the surface of the basket moves away from the clutch disc. After this, the gearbox input shaft stops moving.

Features of working on automatic transmissions

In conventional automatic transmissions, such a transmission element as the clutch is simply absent. But on robotic and cam “automatic machines” it is provided. By the way, on the latter type of transmission the clutch only works when starting. During movement, this element does not function.

Most automatic transmissions use a wet multi-plate clutch. However, squeezing here occurs not by pressing a specific pedal (which simply isn’t there), but by a servo drive (in other words, an actuator). At the moment, it is customary to distinguish between several types of these devices:

• Electric. This servo drive is a stepper motor. It is controlled by an ECU (electronic control unit).
• Hydraulic. Such an actuator is made in the form of a hydraulic cylinder. It is driven by a special hydraulic distributor.

Robotic gearboxes use two types of clutches. They function intermittently. When the first one is pressed to automatically shift a certain gear, the second one waits for a command to press the next one.

We extend the service life

The clutch is perhaps one of the most wear-resistant elements in a car's design. A high-quality unit can last 200 thousand kilometers or more. However, to ensure that your gearbox does not require repairs in the first weeks of driving, you need to know certain operating rules.

When driving a car with a manual transmission, first of all, learn how to press the pedal correctly. When you release it slightly, the clutch engages. At this moment, the pressure plate spring brings the driven mechanism to the flywheel. There is a smooth grinding of elements. Due to this, the disk slips slightly relative to the flywheel, and the latter also begins to rotate.

At the next stage, it is necessary to give the unit a little time so that the speed is as equal as possible. To do this, hold the pedal in the middle position for about 2-3 seconds. After this, the number of revolutions of the flywheel will approach the speed of rotation of the disk. So, the car is slowly picking up speed.

What to do next? When the flywheel with the driven and pressure plate begins to rotate independently at the same speed and without slipping, the highest torque transmission occurs. In this case, there is no need to re-disconnect the gearbox and engine (except during emergency braking). As soon as the car starts moving, and the speedometer is already more than 10 kilometers per hour, you can safely release the pedal. Then, in a similar way, we switch to a higher gear up to 5th (if traffic regulations allow it).

Please note that if you suddenly release the clutch pedal when starting off, the car will move jerkily and stall after 3-4 seconds. This is due to the fact that when the discs are sharply ground in, the motor transfers all the power to the box, thereby simply tearing it. The load on the gears increases, and accordingly, the life of the transmission mechanisms decreases. You should not suddenly release the pedal when starting, as this will greatly harm your car. Only when the car picks up a sufficiently high speed (this is already 3-5th gear), when switching to a higher gear, can you “throw” the pedal right away.

How not to burn this node?

You should not think that if you press this pedal for a long time, the operation of the car’s clutch will be stable, and the car will not suffer from this. For example, at intersections and when stopping at red, you should immediately switch to neutral. If all this time (about 20-40 seconds) your foot is on the clutch pedal, you will simply burn it out in 1-2 days. The price for it, depending on the car model, ranges from 200 to 1000 dollars and above. Agree, this is quite a large amount.

As practice shows, with proper use of the clutch, you can not change the basket and disc for 100-200 thousand kilometers (applies to imported car brands). The main thing is to feel when to press the pedal and when not to. If your stop lasts more than 5-6 seconds, feel free to turn on neutral. You can do this earlier, for example, if you saw a red traffic light 300 meters away. In this case, the car will move by its own inertia. By the way, using “rolling”, you can significantly reduce your car’s fuel consumption.

Thus, you should not suddenly release the clutch pedal, but you should not hold it for very long. In both cases, you risk deteriorating the technical condition of the car.

Knot adjustment

From time to time, the car requires clutch adjustment. Over time, the pedal stroke increases, as a result of which the mechanisms are not completely turned off. That is, when the pedal is pressed to the maximum, the shafts do not turn off, but remain “in grinding in” with the engine. And this, as we said earlier, significantly increases the level of load on the teeth. As a result, all components of the unit wear out.

How to determine this?

Knowing if your car needs a clutch adjustment is easy. To do this, you need to take a construction tape and measure the distance from the floor to the rubber pedal pad. On most passenger cars this value is about sixteen centimeters. And the pedal travel is set using a special locknut, which is located at the end of the cable under the hood. In this case, the mechanism should be pressed three times until it stops (to the floor).

Conclusion

So, we examined in detail the features of the car’s clutch system. As you can see, this part is of great importance for the engine and gearbox. Therefore, you should not neglect the rules of its operation and waste the basket if there is no special need. Take care of your car and use the clutch carefully!

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The principle of operation of a car clutch - (VIDEO)

You can often hear the phrase “depress the clutch” from drivers. For many, the clutch is the leftmost pedal in a car with a manual transmission, and drivers of cars with an automatic transmission or CVT do not think about this issue at all, since in their cars there is no separate pedal for the clutch.

Let's figure out what a clutch is and what function it performs.

The clutch is the link between the engine and the transmission; it connects or disconnects the transmission input shaft from the crankshaft flywheel. On cars with manual transmission, gears are switched only when the clutch is depressed - that is, the gearbox is not connected to the engine and the moment of movement is not transmitted to it.

If the designers of the first cars had not thought of such a solution, it would have been simply impossible to change gears, the speed could only be changed using the gas pedal, and to stop it would be necessary to completely turn off the engine.

At the moment there are many different types, subtypes and modifications of the clutch, but the classic clutch looks like this:

• pressure plate - clutch basket;
• driven disk - feredo;
• release bearing.

Of course, there are many other elements: the release bearing clutch, the clutch housing itself, damper springs to soften vibrations, friction linings that fit on the ferrode and soften the friction between the basket and the flywheel.

The clutch basket, in its simplest single-disk version, is in constant connection with the flywheel and constantly rotates with it. The driven disk has a splined clutch into which the gearbox input shaft enters, that is, all rotation is transmitted to the gearbox. If you need to change gears, the driver presses the clutch pedal and the following happens:

• through the clutch drive system, pressure is transmitted to the clutch fork;
• the clutch fork moves the release bearing clutch with the bearing itself to the release springs of the basket;
• the bearing begins to put pressure on the release springs (legs or petals) of the basket;
• the paws temporarily disconnect the disc from the flywheel.

Then, having changed gears, the driver releases the clutch pedal, the bearing moves away from the springs and the basket again comes into contact with the flywheel.

If you think about it, there is nothing particularly complicated about such a device, but your opinion will immediately change when you see the clutch disassembled.

There are several types of clutch:

• single- and multi-disc (multi-disc is usually used on cars with powerful engines and for automatic transmissions);
• mechanical;
• hydraulic;
• electric.

If we talk about the last three types, then in principle they differ from each other in the type of drive - that is, in how the pressure on the clutch pedal is transmitted.

The most common type of clutch at the moment is the hydraulic clutch.

Its main elements are the clutch master and slave cylinders. Pressure on the pedal is transmitted to the main cylinder through a rod, the rod moves a small piston, and accordingly the pressure inside the cylinder increases, which is transmitted to the working cylinder. The working cylinder also has a piston connected to a rod; they are driven and press on the release bearing fork.

In the mechanical type of clutch, the clutch pedal is connected through a cable to a fork, which drives a bearing.

The electric type is the same as the mechanical one, with the difference that the cable, after pressing the pedal, is driven by an electric motor.

Clutch in cars with automatic transmission

Although such cars do not have a clutch pedal, this does not mean that there is nothing between the engine and the gearbox. Typically, cars with automatic transmission use more advanced multi-plate wet clutch options.

It is wet because all its elements are in an oil bath.

The clutch is depressed using servos or actuators. Here the electronics play a big role, which determines which gear needs to be switched, and while the electronics is thinking about this issue, small failures in operation occur. An automatic transmission is convenient because you don’t need to constantly press the clutch, the automatic transmission does everything itself, but it’s true that repairs are quite expensive.

And here is a video about the principle of operation of the clutch, as well as the gearbox.