Tuesday, November 8, 2011

How Does A Differential Gear Work, You Ask?

Mechanical aptitude comes in many forms, for me personally its in fabrication and general building principles. Engines, gears, parts, etc. all look like puzzle pieces in my head and I can see how they fit together based on shape and perceived function. Sometimes it might be a bit of trial and error akin to tuning a carburetor, but figuring out the precision aspects is half the fun. For other folks such as Chief its all about electrical engineering and "potential" energy. His mind wraps around it like a tortilla engulfing some tasty carne asada, rice and beans. Or we have someone such as Josh over at Wrench Works that dials into in the workings of all individual parts and fully understands the machinery as a whole and can refine the mechanical processes throughout. Lesson here is to make good friends who know what you don't know, sound familiar?

So ya wanna know about differential gears though, you say? Well, if your not Bert Baker and those gear ratios are giving you a hard time, sometimes its great to start from the beginning as we can't know everything, but can sure as hell learn more.

While our brains are crunching on gear ratios for our street fighter and new axle and transmission setup for the '51 Chevy shop truck we had to research a few places to dig into the basics and get our working plans in order.



Only thing missing from this video is if it was being narrated by Patches O'Houlihan.


More info from Wikipedia on Differential Gears