Haven't shifted manually in years!

Pfffft.......you will have it down again in 10 minutes. I doubt it will take that long to be honest.

 

Same,.. I had a 15 yr absence from trucking,. I jumped back in and it was like being with an old friend. You never forget.

Hurst

 

You'll be fine. I drove an auto for three years and the one I have now is manual. It took about 10 min to get used to. I will say this though, after 2 years with this truck I still miss my auto in heavy traffic! My knee is getting old like the rest of me!

 

I've driven 9's, 10's 13's autoshifts and push button automatics. Anytime I come out of my push button auto into anything else, the hardest thing is remembering the clutch. Had to drive one of our daycabs for two days, equipped with an autoshift. First time I tried to take off, I shifted the lever to drive, released the brakes, gave it fuel and rolled backwards against the parking stop. Truck started rapidly beeping at me, brain said "Hey dummy, CLUTCH!!". Oops, pushed the clutch in, truck went into gear and off we went. When I went to stop, almost hit the trailer ahead of me when I forgot the clutch again. Happened 3 times before muscle memory kicked in.

 

This is not a trucking story, but way back when, the first cars that had "power brakes" also had extra wide brake pedals, in the mistaken belief that people would be safer if they used their left foot on the brake, rather than the right foot. At the time my ride was a 55 Chev with a "three on the tree." One day I had occasion to drive an auto shift with power brakes. Darn near put myself through the windshield, when I tried to use the clutch.

 

If you are terribly nervous about it, a lot of areas have companies that rent out a truck and trailer for the dmv drive test, usually give you a couple hours of drive time first to get used to the thing. Couple hundred bucks is nothing to sneeze at, but it could give you a bit of piece of mind.

 

It will all come back to you in less than 60 seconds. But then I drove a manual for 15 years before I switched to automatic.