This is back to an old favourite subject. I’ve built loads of these in my time, and many of them appeared in “Everything Automotive III”, a compilation of gearbox designs that I edited a few years back (still available from MW Mail Order). This one, though, is slightly different from any of those. It is based on an idea I found in a French Magazine (CAM) and uses an extra pair of layshafts to provide a convenient input. I developed this to add a useful reverse gear in line with the others, and then developed my own ideas for selector rods, “detentes” and gear change. Coming up with a “gate” of the right size was fun, too!

But eventually it all came together and at a scale that would fit inside a 1/10th scale truck chassis with the gate sitting neatly between the truck’s twin seats. You can check out the photo (and a few others) here at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46060578@N03/8233994831/in/photostream/

The truck? That is a Kenworth Logger, coming on pretty well, so watch this space!