DOWN Shifting

For Practice,... Try this
Some time on a Road that has no traffic, put your truck in gear, 1st or 2nd and let the engine take it to as fast as It will with out giving it any fuel, then as it tops out, touch the clutch, then pull it out of gear and as the RPMs drop a bit, with the fingers gently push in into the next higher gear but do not depress the fuel pedle, the truck will on its own seek the max speed in that gear with out fuel Keep going all the way up thru till you reach 10 once you reach 10 WITHOUT EVER TOUCH THE FUEL! You will now be going approx 45 miles per hour. Mind you you never gave it any fuel. from there you can go back down using the slow side of the RPMs and a tap on the fuel to bring it back down to your crawler gear, (1st) after practing that a few times, you will start to get the feel for your truck.

 

Slow down before you attempt to down shift. Sounds like you need to back to school so they can finish teaching you. This is what the were suppose to teach you.

 

I was taught to use the clutch for stopping and starting. Float em all, up and down. Was taught by a seasoned trucker that started back in the early 50's. He was a mess and still is.
He's retired but can still tell some tall tales.

 

Just when I got good with floating them gears up and down, I got put into a super 10. Super 10 is easy enough, but i keep forgetting I'm driving one and often times end up skip shifting. I don't really down shift coming to a light, I think that's what your service brakes are for. I rarely touch my service brakes on the interstate so why bother about down shifting coming to a light unless you are slowing down and have to down shift to get going again cause the light has changed? I know plenty of truck drivers that don't down shift coming to lights unless they need to. Me i play the light and try to let the light change before I am stopped.

 

One day you will figure out why when you have something happen ahead of you and you are dead in the water hopelessly grinding the hell out of the gears with no ability to power out of the predicament.

You can tell the good drivers from the bad just by watching to see if they downshift when rounding corners or coming to stop lights. Not just in a truck but in cars too.

This is one of my pet peeves. When I ask someone if they can drive a stick they claim to be real good, been driving a stick since they was 15, then I watch them coast around half the time in neutral using the brakes for everything.

The only time I use the brakes is about 3 seconds before I have to stop completely. The engine should absorb all the energy differences when you are driving a manual transmission, that is the giant benefit of driving a stick compared to a brake eating automatic.

 

Let that driver trainer know that floating a clutch does not make a truck driver. If you really want to show him what you know study the truck show him you know where every gear should be at any given time. That's when you can jump gears both up and down. Most of our drivers still use the double clutch way. We get awards of our trucks for safety with minimal cost.

 

I like this....rebirth of a 5 year old thread....twice....once in 2008 and again in 2011!

Man...these computers store useless/useful information forever!

 

Ummm, I don't know exactly where I said I coast around corners or anywhere, but i don't coast, I will stay in gear until I need to shift, now I have not gotten stuck anywhere since I have been driving. Now as for "good drivers", what are you considering good drivers, cause I see those super truckers going up and down the interstate all day long, tail gating and speeding like it aint no tomorrow and then I end up having to detour cause they done hit someone or had some sort of accident. So if you have a pet peeve about something I said, the only thing I can say to you is get over it, cause you can't drive my truck and yours. You stick to driving yours and I'll drive mine. If you look at statistics, it's you veteran drivers that have most of the accidents cause you think you know it all and can't be told anything. Have a pet peeve about that.

 

Ugh! This is like reading about dance steps, either you've got the rhythm or you don't.

I have to do a lot of slip seating at my company. 7 speed and 6 speed straight trucks, and tractors with Eaton 10's (but different engine combos) plus a stick in my personal ride.

One day I was so busy/tired I double clutched the straight truck, redlined the tractor and looked for the high-side on my MR-2!

Still I've always wondered why they can't make a syncro-plate for a big truck. As Clarkson says,,, "how hard can it be?"

As for your rookies,,, it could be worse,,, there's this old chestnut:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-ffkS37miQ[/ame]

(BTW I've also occasioanlly hit the splitter while coasting to a light, nothing says "DON'T DO THAT!" like listening to the hi-lo try to spin UP to 3000 rpms! oops!)

 

Yes, they put a clutch between the engine and the tranny for a reason, LOL!