layshaft
Sign in to savethumb|Sectioned 3-speed manual 'crash' gearbox, for a car c. 1935 A layshaft is an intermediate shaft within a gearbox that carries gears, but does not transfer the primary drive of the gearbox either in or out of the gearbox. Layshafts are best known through their use in car gearboxes, where they were a ubiquitous part of the rear-wheel drive layout. With the shift to front-wheel drive, the use of layshafts is now rarer.
~7 min read
Article
7 sectionsContents
- Origins
- Car manual transmissions
- 'All-indirect' gearboxes
- See also
- References
- Notes
- Citations
thumb|Sectioned 3-speed manual 'crash' gearbox, for a car c. 1935 A layshaft is an intermediate shaft within a gearbox that carries gears, but does not transfer the primary drive of the gearbox either in or out of the gearbox. Layshafts are best known through their use in car gearboxes, where they were a ubiquitous part of the rear-wheel drive layout. With the shift to front-wheel drive, the use of layshafts is now rarer.
The driving shaft carries the input power into the gearbox. The driven shaft is the output shaft from the gearbox. In car gearboxes with layshafts, these two shafts emerge from opposite ends of the gearbox, which is convenient for RWD cars but may be a disadvantage for other layouts.