What am I doing wrong

From time to time I am guilty of this, makes me feel like a dang idiot every time like I suddenly went back to being a beginner and I've been shifting since childhood.

 

Every shift you make, whether up or down, should have very little pressure on the pedal. You should be able to stick a raw egg between your foot and the pedal and not crush it.

It's easier to teach a guy how to get it in and out of gear by mashing the pedal, but to shift smooth, you gotta treat it like a woman. Be gentle.

 

How do you get your truck into the kitchen?

 

Yep, there's the problem stop using the clutch.

Problem solved

 

Not sure how you could stall the truck if you're in the proper gear taking off. If you need to use the go pedal to get moving from a dead stop you are in too high of a gear. Trucks and their drivetrains are not built to handle the engine building torque while lifting off or during upshifting.

 

While learning (again) to drive a manual,
I was told to only use the clutch when stopped, or to get it out of gear in lower gears, float the rest of the time. After I stopped resisting, my shifting improved dramatically.

So I totally agree, float except from a stop.

 

It's not the dumb part.

What's REALLY stupid causing me to lay on the floor laughing until I cannot breathe or see is when the clutch happens to be slowly going out on you in traffic. You have been enduring stop and go across Jersey and finally into the GWB towards Connecticut and not even midnight yet. You have bencome increasingly tired doing battle with that stupid clutch work. Shifting until your arm just about falls off.

In all of this you are beginning to get really mean and bad morale why in the world did your company stick you into a truck that wont give you a gear shoving harder on it closer to and finally against the cab floor. Your body would be a straight line from the clutch all the way to your head as you try to turn beet red applying that last smidgen of pedal to get that gear so you can get moving again.

Your critical thinking has pretty much gone out the window long ago leaving you simply not understand that all of your clutch plates have been worn all day and now has reached a point your pedal is not that far fro the floor at all. Eventually you wont have anything left ta all with which to shift for love or money. And it; going to be right where 5 sets of cars, taxis, people, trucks and all sorts of traffic want by YOU now. MOVE THAT TRUCK!!!

Under cover of all the drama, terror, stress and working really hard your tractor has quietly loosened the clutch plates until none of them will engage and work properly.

 

The problem might be your mindset that you are going to stall the truck. In most cases, that truck won't stall in a low gear. It will lug, it will start bucking, but it isn't like a car and it shouldn't just stall. These big transmissions don't shift fast like a small car.

 

The same way that you fix the dishwasher...put it over your knee.