Most concise explanation of a gearbox I've seen so far

Haha okay.

I'll try to break it down, and I'm going to exclude the interiors if that's okay. I'm also going to simplify and consolidate parts, and I'll expand if anyone asks a question about a subsystem specifically.

So you can break up a car into these basic subsystems:

  1. Powertrain: This is your engine and gearbox. They convert the chemical energy in your fuel into motion. An engine is made of multiple cylinders. A cylinder is made up of a combustion chamber (I call it the boom room), and a piston. There are 4 phases in the working of your cylinder: Suck (air is sucked and fuel is injected), squeeze (the piston compresses the air-fuel mixture), bang (a spark is introduced and there's a little explosion), blow (whatever didn't go bang/boom is blown out, this is your exhaust). That bang forces the piston down. The piston goes up/down, and is connected to something called a crankshaft, which takes the up/down and converts it into rotary motion, aka it makes the crankshaft spin. This crankshaft is connected to the gearbox in the OP gif, and it just controls the torque (spinning power) at the wheels. In your average road car, you want high torque at low speed to get it moving.

  2. Vehicle dynamics: Suspension, brakes, and steering. Brakes slow down the car by applying friction to the wheel, just like in a bicycle. Steering just takes your rotation of the wheel and transmits it to the wheels. Suspension has springs and dampers. The spring absorbs the bumps in the road. The damper is there to stop your springs from just bouncing up and down, and they do this by slowly getting rid of the boi-oi-oi-oi-oing of the springs. This way, you don't feel the bumps too badly.

  3. Body-in-white: All the other bits are bolted onto this. This is your car's structure. You bolt the other subsystems onto this, as well as your doors, hood, trunk, bumpers, body panels, etc.

If anyone has any questions or wants a more detailed explanation, I'm happy to answer. I might have missed something or fucked stuff up because I was typing this while on the throne and I'm off my ADHD meds, but I reckon I explain things well enough to a layperson.

/r/educationalgifs Thread Parent Link - gfycat.com