I doubt that was an intentional design. Basically, the 1st gear does not
have enough friction to get the main shaft and clutch to spin fast
enough for the gear hub to align and engage. Push harder and it will
either go or crunch.

Dennis

-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf
Of Rob Campbell
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2004 6:39 PM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: general transmission ?s

Hello-

I'm basically a total novice when it comes to transmissions (though I've
successfully taken apart, serviced, and rebuilt that on my honda ct90).
I have a question about how my 89 Vanagon handles things...

When I am rolling to a stop, I have found that I am unable to put the
stick into 1st (with the clutch depressed fully, of course) until the
engine slows enough.  This is obviously a good thing; you dont want to
step on the clutch and pop into 1st while you are going 40mph.  I am
wondering how this works.  My 1988 Fox was the same way (in fact I am
constantly amazed at how similar the vanagon feels to the fox).  In some
other cars I have driven, you -can- physically shift into 1st while RPMs
are dangerously high.  I once had a bad habit of pre-emptively shifting
into 1st and just holding down the clutch until a stop was reached.  How
does the vanagon prohibit this?  Is it due to the gear synchro design?
On my fox, I found this setting to be "too high", it would not allow me
to shift into first at times when I thought it was appropriate; for
example to engine brake at low speeds on a very mild downhill slope.  On
the vanagon, its tolerable, but still weird.  Is this common in all
modern transmissions?

Thanks