downshifting an 8 speed freightliner

I never went to school and never had a trainer. Unless you count the guy that I rode 3 miles to the elevator with my first time in an 18 wheeler.

Showed me how he floated gears by listening and feeling and how to shift a 13 speed and I was off on my own.

 

I could figure it out, but I've been a trucker for yearsa and have no idea how to downshift a 8, 9 15, or 18. In school i drove a 10 and now I drive a 13. Now if you put me in a truck with a different trans i could figure it out pretty quick. You cant expect a driver to know every trans right out of cdl school.

 

Amen, brother! I had the same attitude when I trained newbies. All in good time.

Especially for intersections. I would have the student concentrate on the braking and not have to fight for a gear, either by dclutch or float. If they are fighting, because they are learning, for a gear and not staying focused on slowing down and maybe having to stop quickly, then they are running the risk of not being on the brake when they need to. Again, all in good time. As they gain more experience, then I would introduce more complicated things. I sure didn't have them take the first mountain grade with 46K in the box either. All in good time. There will ample opportunities to learn all about downshifting, fight off lizards, and all the other little things about trucking that they are curious about but almost afraid to ask about as the days go by.

 

Well I guess when I did my schooling 27 years ago we obviously did things differently . We were not on the freeway with less than an hours wheel time. We were still in the yard gearing up and gearing down rolling through the course. We had different trucks with different tranies. One of whick was the old 13 spd with everything on the Splitter. No high low range selector to make life easy on that truck . When we went out into traffic everyone had the general idea on how to go up thru the gears up and back down Were we perfect ? No but we knew how to do it. I will agree it all takes time but a person coming out of school should know the basics and not have to ask which speed which gear questions for which transmission.

Oh ya, When we were still rolling around in the yard the instructors would love to slap the stick outta gear and tell us to put it back in with out stopping. I guess that`s were we learned how put in gear using the rpm method.
Chow4now guys

 

Absolutely! I am still learning, but we just started to downshift after the 3rd week of school. Really, no need to know how to downshift immediately. I regularly stop at stop signs/lights in 7th or 8th gear, with very little to no coasting.

 

Good info from everyone. I even learned some ideas

 

I thought the DMV testers here in CA wanted us to know how to downshift? I've read the study booklet and it says not to coast longer than the length of the vehicle and that we should downshift.