Quote:
Originally Posted by Logic
This is just a crazy idea I had and thought I'd put 'out there':
Take your well run in manual gearbox apart.
Wrap thick copper wire around each gear and discharge a large capacitor through the wire to magnetize the gears so the tops are north and and the bottoms south. (not left north and right south. Although that may work too)
Now all the gears are magnetized such that they repel each other when the box is put back together.
Due to the very small gaps between gear teeth the repulsive force should be substantial enough to avoid gear tooth contact a lot of the time, and greatly decrease the pressure with which the teeth push on each other all the time.
I have no idea how much difference this would make?? Research Reqd!
You'd still have to add oil. (drag. maybe thinner oil?)
Then there's the issue of all that fine metal that usually accumulates on the sump plug magnet! On a well run in gearbox..?
It'd be great if some one here knows the maths in this and can chip in so I don't have to go look it all up!  |
Two things came to mind.
1) The gears are hydrodynamically lubricated. In operation, they never actually make physical contact with one another. So we'd be working on a problem that never existed in the first place.
2) Secondly, if one were to magnetize the gears, they'd be in a position to attract any ferrous metal debris suspended in the gear oil.
It would in essence be like pouring 'sand' into the transmission.
Some race car owners ARE known to epoxy a rare earth magnet to the bottom of a transmission and engine crankcase to attract and 'sequester' any such contaminants. An uncle did this on his cars.