Help me learn how to float

There's two pedals for that, right??!

 

serious question

 

lol I thought we were teaching him about root beer and vanilla ice cream.

 

double clutching seems to work fine for me, never heard about floating in a truck ??

 

OK, here is how I float when straight downshifting a 13 without the splitter.

I throw on the jakes, and when the rpm gets down to, say 1200 rpm, I will put a slight amount of pressure on the throttle, usually just enough so the jakes turn off. I slide it out of gear. I then raise the rpm about 300-400 rpm while using slight pressure on the shifter. Just two fingers worth of pressure. You might feel it tickling the gears a bit but it will slide right in. Don't try manhandling the thing into gear. You will get a grind. Most the time I don't even feel it tickling the gears and it just slides right in.

 

Just maybe, the trainer should ask for another student

 

Don't worry about floating yet. You'll be more relaxed in your own truck. Getting used to double clutching is good at first, so you can use it whenever you want. I double clutch in certain situations, but no two are the same.

I would keep your trainer and do like he asked. Then you can practice floating on your own and you won't have any pressure. I learned faster this way. Now I can up and down shift without looking at my gauges.

 

drivers forget the fear some newbies have from "not getting it right", Most(i think) students stress alot about what they haven't learned prior to going solo.

The thing about learning to float on your on & in your own truck, is that if you are aware of surroundings & safe while learning to do so you will not stress as much because you can just double clutch it to get the gear & when doing it safely then its not a real issue of missing a gear. Again safely, not in congested traffic lol.


After being in a automatic truck for lil over two years I have had to get back used to the down shifting just a lil.........its a timing thing really & every truck is truly a lil different. I have been on yards & seen exp. drivers that have a truck for a year or better n slide gears good, get switched trucks & grind going out the yard.
I can pretty much bet if you are a decent driver & safe mindset behind the wheel you will be getting floating down with in a few solo runs.

Remember driver, your trainer is not going to teach you everything that you will learn. I have been driving only for 3 years & i learn something new almost every trip.

 

Never got the hang of floating down shifting. Where floating helps is in town and usually you're in 7th or 8th at the most dancing from red light to red light. But as a lot of posters have already said just learn how to do the job before going into tricks of the trade. Learn floating on your own time while someone in the back isn't trying to sleep listening to grinding gears or hearing his transmission being ripped to pieces. Remember he has to have another student after you.

 

A clutch? You mean the petal far left you use for starting and stopping? J/k In my exp i found that while i float most of the time, sometimes a 2x clutch is needed. One way to learn is by pushing the clutch in a little less when you shift. Soon you might realize your just tapping it and floating thru the gears. Just my $.02