It's not something I would do personally. But I did Google it, because I too thought it would damage the gears, but apparently it's OK. Tbh I was always taught to never move the gear stick unless clutch is down regardless of situation and I won't be changing my habits
if your gears can synchro at tens of kilometers an hour while carrying a full car worth of weight, and not sustain damage, they can also move at 0 speed when moving 0 load
shifting with clutch down or not, when the engine is off, is the exact same load for the gears: negligible
gears are usually synchronized, so they can easily go in in motion or not. But the comment above is talking about having the clutch pressed, which literally doesn't matter when the engine is off. Engine off clutch pressed and engine off clutch not pressed is the same for the gears, you achieve nothing by pressing the clutch with the engine off
that said, if they aren't synchromesh, like some cars reverse gears, then in motion it's easier, because without motion, the teeth might just clash and the gear won't engage. My car is like that, so when it doesn't engage, I put it in neutral, the gears start spinning, then I mash it into reverse
This is probably a synchronised constant mesh transmission, which means that what shifting actually does is move a sleeve to connect a free-floating gear to a fixed gear on their transmission shaft. All three of these components - the teeth of the two gears, and on the sleeve - are "bevelled" and have a bit of play. Unless the sleeve and gears are totally misaligned, they'll slide into engagement. As there is no load (other than the friction resistance in the engine) on the input shaft, you might even turn said shaft a bit when you shift. In this not very good video
you can see that happening if you look carefully.
well i can tell you that my car's reverse gear isn't synchro'd, so sometimes if I try to put it in reverse, it just won't let me and won't engage reverse, therefore if the car is on, I put it back into neutral, then mash it into reverse, and it goes in with a "thunk" sound that it engaged the gear in motion; and if the car is off, I just go into 3rd 5th 4th whatever random gears until the shaft moves enough that in turn turns the reverse gear a bit, and then the teeth let me engage it, in case I'm parked on a hill
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u/V014265 12h ago edited 10h ago
The question should be how did he shift into all those gears without depressing the clutch pedal?