Resting your hand on the shifter
 

Do you guys usually rest your hand on the shifter? I heard the extra weight is bad for the transmission.
And if the weight is bad for the transmission, what about a weighted shift knob?

Haha I think about this everyday. Especially with my 500gram flossy shift knob. From what I've read our hand is worse because it completely creates a counter force on the natural movement of the shift linkage. The shift knob doesn't, just makes it a little harder which I am sure also affects it in a negative but not as bad.

Both of you need to provide links to this information.

Watch any pro driver. Hands on the wheel at all times, except to shift.

Bet a dime it has nothing to do with the weight of his hand destroying his transmission.

Resting your hand on the shifter will cause the shift fork to make contact with the syncronizers (which spins) and will eventually cause wearing on the forks. If I remember correctly, a complaint will be the shifter popping out of gear. I rest my hand on top of the hand brake.

Resting your hand on the shifter is not a problem by itself. A weighted shift knob is not an issue at all, there's not enough force to matter, but if you rest a 10lb arm on the shifter, it can cause the stick to deflect slightly from it's intended position.

Easy explanation:
Deflecting the stick potentially causes an internal part of the transmission shift mechanism to drag. Its like starting the shift motion, but only just holding it there. This is bad, don't do it. If you MUST rest your hand on the shifter, keep a light touch and make sure its not moving. Shifting and occasional stick movement isn't going to hurt anything, but constant drag can.

Technical explanation:
Inside the transmission, each pair of gears shares a shift fork (move the stick left to choose the 1-2 fork, stick center is the 3-4 fork, stick right is the 5-6 fork). Each shift fork kinda looks like the letter C and pushes a synchro fore or aft to engage one gear or the other. The C shaped portion rides in a groove around the synchro so the synchro can spin freely, but still be pushed into position as necessary. Once a gear is engaged, the shift fork is meant to simply rest in that position (held in place by the the synchro groove) until the driver forces it to disengage that gear.

Resting your hand on the shifter can cause the shift fork to drag against the groove in the synchro, causing abnormally high friction as the oil is scraped away. Eventually, this can gall/break the shift fork and prevent it from moving the synchro properly, which manifests itself as weird shift problems, grinding, popping out of gear, etc.

Solution: get a automatic and rest your hand on that for days. Unless you have a column gear selector like me, then that's just a bit awkward.

Shift forks and hub sleeves. They are not designed to drag against each other indefinitely.
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/pictu...pictureid=8577

I don't buy into this, I've had friends rest their hand on their STi and Evos all the time and the car still runs fine.

But I'm assuming they're not putting a lot of pressure and weight on the shifter, they're just resting their hand on it. I also do the same as well my car still runs fine at 17K miles.

the transmission is designed to deal with thousands of ft/lbs of torque and we worry that the weight of our hand is going to ruin it? dont do it because you should have your hands on the wheel.

A little contradicting if you ask me. The final answer is YES, there will be some sort of LONG term wear on your shift forks/synchros. Nothing you will probably ever notice until many miles have been registered on said gearbox. But FYI Most people arms do weigh about 10lbs :D

It takes a long time. I destroyed a B-210 transmission in my early 20s. Learned my lesson the hard way after it started popping out of 4th. It's real. If you do it, quit.

Damn, some of you have Cylon arms or what?