Double Clutching advice no manual experience..

Asking too many question. Give it a little more time. You overthinking it. Ease up on the gas pedal, best advice I ever got.

 

You downshift to a lower gear until you get to 5th (most common) and you play the light or traffic, if you must stop, wait until you are about stopped and or the engine begins to lug.. push in the clutch and stop,, or as the light changes and or traffic begins to move, slowly apply power and begin to upshift again.

This will happen... it happens to everyone.. the best advice? learn the pattern and learn the speed ranges for the gears.. if you get lost or come out of gear, look at your speed, know which gear "represents" that speed.. raise the RPMs a little and "go for it" it may not be pretty.. but eventually it will get smoother.

If you stop in a high gear (you'd have to coast to a stop... not good), just push the clutch ALL the way in.. select a starting gear (3rd) and start all over when you can safely start.

Just breathe... while shifting talk to yourself! Out loud is best! When rolling you "tap" the clutch.. like testing a hot iron! TAP -neutral-TAP-shift. get the plunger out.. draw a shift pattern on a notebook and practice moving a shift lever.. a potato makes a swell clutch...

 

Just keep practicing. It takes time to get the feel for it. The biggest thing is to keep calm and don't panic when you miss a gear. If you start getting stressed, it makes everything that much harder. Just keep in mind that no one expects you to shift flawlessly the first few times out.

 

Just want to say this...

There's only one kind of dumb question. The kind you didn't ask.

You're not the first to ask about shifting and have trouble with it. So let me assure you that you most certainly won't be the last.

 

This is a question you really should be asking your trainer/teacher. Besides it's much easier to be shown and explained instead of trying to understand from words only thru an internet forum. To even ask this question when you have a trainer available is beyond my understanding.
Good luck.

 

I know. I kinda feel the same way. If I had to guess, it's easier to ask a group of unknown people and be anonymous over asking the person who knows you.

But it's a guess. And I certainly have been wrong before.

 

At a stop I come off the clutch just until it starts to catch then release the brake then come the rest of the way off the clutch. That will keep you from rolling back which I believe is an automatic fail.

In a semi it's doubtful that you'll get the wrong gear since the road speed and RPMs have to match up. If you miss one and you're on flat ground go back to the gear you were in before and adjust the RPMs around your previous shift point and it should go back in. Pointing uphill drop a gear from where you were, downhill go up a gear.

Yes at a stop you can just push the clutch once and come out of any gear and go into any gear.

Shifting these things is all about timing and getting in a rhythm with the truck. It takes some practice but once you get the feel for the rhythm there's really nothing to shifting. If you're doing the plunger practice pull up a YouTube video of someone shifting a 10 speed and shift with him so you're getting the rhythm in your practice.

 

Youtube is your friend.

 

Maybe he is nervous around the trainer.

I took a driver out that had been driving 20 years and he was scraping every gear. I asked him what was wrong, he stated that after watching me drive the truck that he was worried that I would not like his shifting. I had to take us back to the office. Jump in my suburban have him drive in front of me and watch the trailer as he shifted. We went back to the office, went back out in the truck and he did great. It is amazing how just being nervous can make the best driver seem like a rookie. My advice to the young man is to remain calm, we all scrape a gear or two here and now. We all went through the same thing, and he will get it. I am with the rest of you, better to get it from the trainer, but I thought the Youtube video was a good idea as well. Good Luck Rookie.