Eaton ultrashift on a hill loaded.

I don't like the Eaton ultrashift but that's easy. Hit the brake with it in auto mode and come to a stop. The ultrashift has hill assist so just take your foot off the brake and press the accelerator down all the way. If you are too heavy for the hill put it in manual and force it down to first gear. Put it back in auto as soon as it's moving.

It shouldn't roll back at all. Try to do it gently and it may very well roll backwards so just mash that go pedal until it's going pretty well.

 

Yes. However, this is normal usage on hills. Clutches are designed to wear out. It will happen. The conditions you drive in and your driving habits are large factors.

As you get better at starting on hills with a loaded trailer, you will put less wear on the clutch.

You want to spend as little time as possible with the clutch only partly engaged. But on some hills, with a heavy load, you might have to burn that clutch hard enough to smell it. That level of wear should be very rare though, especially after a driver has spent a few months on the road.

 

I didn't see anywhere where you mentioned it was an older version with a clutch pedal.

In that case you work it the same way you would a manual transmission.

 

Why would you ever want to stop on a uphill. If you stopped in Northwest Vermont on a 25% it is death to you. You cannot stop. Must not.

You can really hurt a truck getting going loaded upgrade. The steeper it is the easier it is to rip or destroy something in your drive train and or see yourself ride backwards to your death or serious injury that probably will end your working years.

Im sorry to be difficult but it goes against everything I know as a driver to stop on a uphill. That's one thing I WILL never do. Something will have to break on that truck and force a stop. If it's catastrophic enough the tow truck can deal with the dead weight.

But for the sake of the question. Let's say it's a auto and you managed to stop upgrade. It better have a manual mode on it to which you can select low gear and apply power gently but firmly all the way to the sweet spot and stay there until you reach the top up shifting manually at the top of your high horse power RPM. It's going to hit a certain point that it will not go any faster or go any further upshifting. Not until you reach the top.

If your auto does NOT have a manual mode. Then I cannot help you. Hopefully you have a trolley to hold the trailer long enough and release by then your clutch needs to be out all the way before applying power gently but firmly to the floor and keep it there. The transmission is just going to have to do what it does.

If you do not have a clutch or trolley you got a problem. It's beyond me.

That's why you don't stop on upgrades. The only possible scenario is if you miss a downshift, scratch it and then screw up trying to get the next gear down and so on on a manual transmission and get stopped fighting it. You start over using the process described in the last few paragraphs. Gently but firmly. Never apply full power against your clutch until that #### thing is all the way out.

Ive said enough. Most trucks tested by DOT in certain situations will accept a restart up to about say 12% grade. Anything beyond that your life and those behind you are in your hands.

 

There are a few places with significant slopes that you just can't avoid. Local drivers in San Francisco can likely provide plenty of horror stories.

 

I agree. There are so many grades I can recall just thinking about them. I remember one near Bethlehem PA that was straight up to the sky off a stop sign. Trailer was like a good 50 feet below me in elevation. Dragging that mother off there in low all the way around the turn was a #####. Took a long time, stopped traffic, honking at me and swearing etc. lolz.

And there are a few back home in which I broke trucks trying to get going, particularly during the container days when weights approach 120000 and beyond against say a 200hp 60's mack.