First time shifting 10 speed

You are doing exactly what the rest of us did at the start. I got tired of getting surprised at red lights, when they changed to green at the last second, so I decided once I was below a certain speed, I was coming to a stop for a moment even if it turned green just before I got to the stop line on the ground. One of the ideas you have to learn when getting into the truck is to accept it accelerates MUCH slower than cars and not rush it or expect it to doing things like a car.

EVERYONE has more difficulty downshifting when slowing than upshifting when accelerating. IMO that mostly happens because everyone pushes the clutch too deep. When rolling don't puch the clutch beyond half of its possible travel from fully up to fully down. I'm remembering you clutch about 1/3, or just enough to get out of gear and just enough to get back into gear. I and others typically at the start will psuch the clutch closer to 3/4 to almost fully down to downshift and that just activates the clutch brake. When in doubt, use less clutch. You, like the rest of us, are going to make all possible clutching mistakes so why not try too little as a first resort

 

Floating is something you do after you are in your own truck unless your trainer says you can try on his truck, not likely. Toward the end of your training with him ask him if he will show you how to float gears. If he says "no", that's the end of floating until you get in your truck. I didn't try floating gears until toward the end of my first year in my truck when I thought I had broken my left foot. Once you know the RPM shift points for the low-range gears and the high-range gears it's pretty easy to float into and out of them.

 

My examiner said it was a fail if I floated the gears on the road test.

 

Stop looking at the tach. Cover it up if you have to. You don’t need it. Just learn to shift by sound and feel.

 

It's roughly 30% easier than shifting a 13 speed.

 

sounds like you would fail even if floating was allowed lol
floating on downshift still requires precise rev to match road speed to get the gear. and even so on up shift. So in hindsight, you need to learn the whole aspect of manual

 

This ^^^^. It will force you to do it by feel and stop you from obsessing on the tach. When I was learning to fly I had a cfi do it with the gauges in the plane to make my vfr flying better and it worked by forcing me to watch the horizon. Different vehicle but same idea, good call @Fold_Moiler

 

When my clutch pedal flapped onto the floor of the COE at Gap PA on US 30, I had to float or stay where I stopped at. So floating came through as a emergency method of shifting. It was no problem finding clutch shop and later in the day it's adjusted properly.

 

I love pulling gap hill fully loaded. I can almost make it to the top in 7 high maxed out tonnage, but still have to split it back to 7 low just before the top. A lot of trucks struggle. Gotta love cat motors

 

To say a lot of trucks struggle is an understatement lol.