90 alley dock and offset back

I would like to point out that the OP has over 1000 posts on this forum and is just now getting into CDL school.

That alone impresses me.

 

Same thing I'm doing. Go get em my friend.

 

If youre having trouble which way to turn wheel to get trailer to go where you want try putting your hand at bottom of the steering wheel at the 6oclock position when backing. move your hand the direction you want the trailer to move from this position and itll go that way.

 

Backing is difficult for most people. The trailer will pivot at about the trailer tandems. Just BEFORE you have the tandems located where you want the trailer to pivot you have to make the steering input. It's just a matter of learning to recognize how much ahead of the pivot point you must turn the steering wheel.

Downshifting, rather than upshifting, is harder for everyone. You just need to practice. The key for me was remembering the combination of road speed (MPH) and gear for that speed. Also each gear, except the top gear, will drop or increase the RPMs by the same amount as other gears in the same range. That's to say, the gears in the low range drop, if you are upshifting, or raise, if you are downshifting about 300 RPMs. You can drive at a constant speed, let's say 15MPH, either in X gear and 1300 RPMs or X-1 (a lower gear) at 1000 RPMs. In the trucks I've driven the high-range gears add/decrease RPMs about 500 RPMs.

Do this experiment in the truck you are driving, maintain a constant speed in a middle gear of the low range. Concentrate on a CONSTANT road speed, it may take concentration. Look over at the RPMs and remember the number. Now shift up one gear and concentrate on returning to the same roadspeed. Once it's stabilized look at the RPMs and see what it's showing. How much is the difference between the RPMs for the same road speed? That's your low-range difference. Do the same for the high-range. The top gear in my trucks usually needs to be used only at the top end of the normal RPM change for the other gears. For example, I usually won't shift into top gear until 50-55 mph even if the RPMs are starting to read higher than I would shift for all other high-range gears. Top gear doesn't like to be anywhere below say 1600 RPMs in my trucks. Top gear will pull good only once the next to top gear is producing 1600 RPMs. If I try to use top gear before 1600 RPMs the truck will stop accelerating and just drag weakly at the same speed.

For me the key is asking the instructor "what EXACTLY are you looking at to take this action at the right spot or time?" Too many drivers have a long story with lots of details about everything except what you need to see and what to do. Stay with one technique for any skill you are learning. The worst thing to do is hop from one technique to another technique to another technique. You will mix them up and do part of one with part of another and be hopelessly confused.

It's probably not helping that I bet you are in a different truck and have different instructors for the same skill. Good luck. Ignore any screaming. When all else fails, push in the clutch and step hard on the brake to avoid hitting anything.

 

That's exactly what I'm doing. I'm still in the process of getting school started, but since I've joined here I've learned so much by lurking in the background. I've wanted to do this since I was a kid, and it's finally getting closer. I also bought American Truck Simulator and play it all the time lmao. I back up as much as I can to at least figure out what I can. If you play pc games I recommend getting it. It's so fun! Being prepared is key.

 

If you're driving an Eaton 10 speed its super easy to know what gear to be in. Take your speed and add the numbers. If you're at 15mph, one plus five is 6, be in 6th gear. 25, 7th, 35 eight gear and so on.