Downshifting for a dummy?

Mountains are famous for making Rocks, Lava, BIG ### trees, Wolverines, Grizzly Bears, Wolves, Mountain Men and yes, you guessed it cupcake, Mineral Water!

It's water mixed with pain, what's not to like!

 

Do tell us all about those 'Mountain men'

 

oh man, had to go there lol

 

The caption should be "I'll show you how to downshift, honey."
Then we'd be back on topic!

 

the best rule is to listen to the truck, it will tell when to down shift and up shift.

 

I'm green, so my advice might not be the best. But for the sake of getting back on topic, I'll pitch in.

In training, the truck we had were 10 speed Internationals. The gauges were what we went by....mainly.


I knew just from looking at the speedometer what gear the truck was in (whether i was driving or not) and what gear we were in and what gear we were about to be in.

The speedometer trick (I dont know if all trucks are this way) 15mph (high side of 6th, 1+5=6) 25mph (high side of 7th, 2+5=7) 35 (high side of 8 3+5 = 8 ) 45(high side of 9th, 4+5=9) and lastly 55 (high side of 10th 5+5=10)

Example, normal driving down the road and I'm going 55 and I want to slow down, break till 45, clutch out/gear out, stomp the bug (stomp the gas pedal as briefly as possible will put RPM's into a sweet spot) and clutch into gear.

It has to be a smooth, quick motion. You know the Adam family song? "The adam family, Snap Snap<--that finger snap part is about the timing you want to shift in. Slower than that and you will be chasing gears.

 

Great rules of thumb, @Locke.

Gotta know gear recovery, so you can know what gear is appropriate according to your road speed. Then you can do double-downshifts with ease. Eventually you don't have to look at the dash to know where you should be and it becomes intuitive, a natural flow.

And then you'll have a brain fart and have to look at the guages again.

 

I've been driving an auto for the last year. When I want to downshift, I just push the 'downshift' button...

 

LMAO!

 

When someone in these forums mentions the phrase "I drive an automatic", a collective breath is taken...like it's high noon before a shoot out in a western.

Ever see that pace picante salsa commercial back in the 80s? "NEW YORK CITY?!?!?" and all the cowboys turn, "....get a rope."
yeah, something like ^ That