Class 1 school in Vancouver area.

Wayne found out this morning that I'm being moved into truck 104 on Monday, not sure why, so he decided to do another day of bobtailing all over Kamloops instead of with a trailer. He figured if I have to learn it a bit different on Monday I might as well just learn it once.

104 is a Kenworth with an 18 speed, so that should be fun.

 

Expensive lesson in shifting an eaton fuller.
I don't understand why new students don't find a delivery company with straight trucks to learn before taking the course

 

Its way easier to shift with a loaded trailer than bobtailing imo. And its not as bumpy lol. 18spd isn't really much different than a 13. I doubt he's going to have you splitting the lower gears. Just the upper like a normal 13. I usually only split 4th when going over to 5th and then split the rest in the upper range. Drove a 10spd the past couple days and wow it was weird not splitting any gears.

 

I actually prefer to split them, I find the half shifts go smoother for me. Looking forward to experiencing the "easier" shifting I hear about with the trailer on. I'm not having any serious issues considering how new I am, just not as smooth as I'd like yet. After 4 hours double clutching in the city my leg is getting pretty tired and that doesn't help with smooth shifting either.

I did try an 18 speed very briefly about 15 years ago, floating the gears splitting through all of them, and picked it up quickly - or so my memory wants me to believe. Mind you I'd been doing a little practice with a 5+4 previous to that so the 18 was a piece of cake in comparison.

I wish that experience was more recent. I had no money for training and the company that was going to help me get my class one at the time didn't follow through, so I didn't get into trucking.

That's why I was willing to spend a bit more than many would have this time. No more messing around worrying about cash - let's get some skills and get out on the dang road! lol

 

very cool hope you had a lot of fun

 

Thanks. I sure have been having fun this week. The Kenworth was noticably nicer from the first moment I climbed in. The drivers door didn't close properly because the cab is so tightly sealed the air pressure fought the door closing. This of course leads to a quieter cab while driving.

Visibility in front of the hood feels better and shifting is smoother too. That particular Western Star's clutch and tranny have a rougher feel to them, probably because onetrack was there first - j/k.

Pulling the trailer is much more fun. It feels like I've crossed some sort of line in my driving since last week, and I'm much more relaxed and confident now.

Tomorrow is going to be city driving with the trailer, I've been doing mainly highway and back roads the last two days.

 

HA!

I still read this forum ya know

 

hehehe well hop i can get over there or Canada and do some trucking something ive all ways wanted to do

 

I'm still having fun. Did my pretrip in 30 minutes today. I get a couple of 8 hour days of driving next week. Going to be pretty wiped after that I think.

 

That length would have worked for me as it turns out. They are considering having me test around there, and then I'll have another week of 8 hour days to do some longer trips with them after my test to get some more experience.

Although I may be ready to test then, I'm glad I will have the additional training as well.