Watkins & Shepard Shifting Sequence

With 40yrs experience, I don't think they;re going to make you memorize that...You should be getting a very abbreviated orientation then on the road...Welcome to the family!!!!!

 

It does work, but the old traditional "If you can't find it grind it" works just as well.

 

Sir, Did you actually end up needing to memorize anything? Just wondering. I am on my way to Orientation/Training on the 11th and want to be prepared and ready to go.

 

You don't need to memorize anything, and they don't test you on the numbers--at least they didn't when I started there. That's more for the students fresh out of school, and memorizing the splits can actually help them learn to shift better. But they still have to learn how to do it by feel and experience.

 

As a wanna-be, it sure would be great benefit to sit in the passenger seat and observe how upshifting and downshifting's done; I'm sure it's a relatively simple and learned thing, but seems complicated to make it happen. A bit like being on outside, looking into a fishbowl at this point. To try it out would be worth alot.

Can only look at a few youtube vid's (most seem to float, can't tell) and decipher the talk about shifting on here; also trying to imagine what's meant to match RPM's to road speed, look at some trans. shifting patterns in some tractor trailer reading books.

I seem to admire the simplicity of the 10-speed trans. though. Anything with more speeds seems over-complicated and unneeded.

 

Heck, when I was driving, after a fashion, I hardly ever used the clutch anymore...just floated into gears. It was so natural after a while that I'd be scared to have to clutch every gear now....and as for 13 and 18 speed transmissions, they are not more complicated or un needed. Going up and down hills gives you so much more control of your speed. I was given an 18 speed KW daycab for WS, and my first day started at 1am with it. I had never driven one before, but after just a few miles it was a piece of cake.