Essentially he said the tranny is occassionally lining up tooth against
>tooth, and that it happens with the imperfect world of manual
>transmissions. He told me what I already knew about shifting into
>first, etc. He said it it does it somewhat occassionally don't worry
>about because it isn't worth trying to fix.
He was trying to explain about those syncromesh things. First off: look at
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and its explanation of manual transmissions[1] first, then if you don't get it, I or somebody else will try to explain further. Especially if you tell us what you don't understand specifically.
The article starts from a basic 2 speed transmission, moves on to an H-pattern 5-speed-plus-reverse, and then moves onto syncros.
Reverse, and sometimes first, generally doesn't have syncros, though the others almost always will. The trick the others mentioned, of letting the clutch in a bit (and possibly revving a bit) while in neutral is called 'double-clutching', and before the arrival of syncros, you had to do that at *every* gear change. The most common car I know of around here that has that property is the (old) Fiat 500.
Jasper
[1] That'd be here:
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