Catmando clutch operating instructional manual.

The counter shafts have a gear that meshes with each gear which floats on the main shaft. The main shaft is only engaged by the teeth on a slide collar that is meshed in one of the gears 1-5 to make it easy. In the center of the slide collar is a gear that’s pressed to the main. The counter shafts are driven by the input shaft. When you let the clutch out it speed matches engine to the gear you are selecting through the input shaft to engine connections and road speed is matched through output shaft. When you press the clutch back in it’s supposed to break the connection or free it up for a smooth engagement. Now if your speed or timing is off even with the clutch depressed it still won’t go till you get speed and timing right. It’s back to neutral and either giver a lil fuel and drop back a hole or try again. reason being is the clutch while breaking the hard fast connection the trans is still spinning. If you are close it will still only half engage and you let off or blip the throttle to get it all the way we’ve all felt that. In short yes the clutch breaks a connection but stops nothing and still needs speed matched in between due to loss of momentum or energy. The RTLO shifts easier due to low inertia technology over the RTO. Slide collar wear isn’t gonna change much there cuz you either find em or grind em either way. Your point about the clutch and the auxiliary trans drive that point a little farther anyone that’s ever driven one understands exactly what you mean. Course these are only opinions that are trumped by the facts presented by opposing counsel.



As an aside real life pictures and comparisons would help the argument from either side. There are times under load yes you need the clutch to break the connection to come out of gear. Since it really stops nothing or makes an out of time shift any easier I continue my stance of what good is it every shift.

 

The 12spd auto in the Freightliner I recently picked up will drop rpms with the jakes on an upshift if you're heavy footed. I'm amazed with both the speed and precision of that transmission as well as its unending attempts to keep the engine spinning at 1k rpms. A blessing and a curse all wrapped into one.

 

I thought you would enjoy that lmao