Floating Gears

the only time that I float gears is when i'm bobtailing or empty.I've double clutched my whole trucking career and I prefer it over floating.

 

I do both. I tend to double clutch the low range, but float the high range. Downshifting - I'll float down a couple of gears, then double clutch any past that needed.

I also skip gears quite often when slowing/stopping as the gears don't really seem to slow the truck as quickly as I would like it to if I try to use every single one.

Like others have said, it depends on the terrain, the weight of the load, etc. etc. I raced for many years before driving a truck, so floating was just natural to me i guess, I don't really have any trouble doing it.

 

Wanna see somebody, not use the clutch and not float. Just catch one of the Mexican produce haulers w/a 2 stick and a Jake Brake. They use the Jake to shift and I think its silly because it will wreck a camshaft but they think it's cool.

 

I always turn the jake brake off when floating, it's to easy to grind with it on because the rpm's drop off faster. I float up and clutch down. Mostly because I double down when I need to make a short to medium distance stop. The best tip I can impart to floating smoothly is to let your rpm's level off before coming out of gear, it will help keep the truck from jerking and give you a more fluid entry into your next gear.

 

i float all the time it's the easiest way to do it for me. use the cluch only if i screw up....lol

 

Im a week out from taking my test for cdl and found out that the Kansas test site requires you to double clutch. Keep that in mind when you go for your road test.

 

When I started out we had 2 speed axles and for the life of me,I couldn,t float so I always double clutched.Later on We had 10,13 and 18 spds.With those trannies and experience,I mostly floated.Our new trucks have 6 spd Allison auto transmissions and I'm a happy puppy. This is my first truck with this tranny,and I never want to go back to shifting.

 

Honestly this thread is the first place I've ever seen the phrase "floating" as refering to shifting without the clutch. Growing up around old farm tractors, and several generations of truckers, we just call that shifting.

The CDL book for Illinois says the same thing but most of the DMV folks have the attitude that if you can shift smoothly and safely they don't care how you do it. Before you go completely changing how you drive, I'd call em and ask.

 

Well, I thought I would post again on the thread since it was mentioned, and also share a situation I ran into recently with this topic.

When I started to drive a big truck, about the first day or two, maybe, I turned off the jakes while floating the gears. After that, I guess I kind of challenged myself to learn to do it with the jakes on, as I didn't really want to mess with turning them on and off (mine are never off unless I am in slick conditions or at the truck stop). Within the next day I was able to float with the jakes on just as well as I could with them off. The trick was to never take your foot all the way off of the pedal so that the jakes never actually kick in while shifting. Floating with them on requires a bit more accuracy, yes, and it isn't as easy.

More recently I've started floating more as I have developed quite a bit of pain in my knee if I double clutch all the time. This has been a bit of a life saver for me.


Now, for the situation. I ran across a driver who had been on the road for about 8 weeks solo after doing his 6 week run with his mentor. When he was driving he thought he was floating the gears, but he actually wasn't. His mentor, an owner operator, had shown him to turn the jakes off and slam the sucker between gears... he did exactly that. It was brutal. The truck jerked and shook and was all over the dang place.

I saw what he was doing and was like, "Your mentor showed you to do this? And he said you were doing it correctly?" He said, "Yea".

He was literally banging that sucker out of gear and into the next one at 1400 rpm or so, and I was surprised it even went, but it did. He was throwing it like you would a car shifter in a race, lol. If he had had the jakes on, he would never have gotten it out of gear, and there was no way in heck he was going to hit the next one. It was just all too fast and too rough.

I jumped in the pilot seat, flipped the jakes on, started out and made my first shift from 2nd to 3rd like it was an automatic, nice and smooth and it took the gear with no fuss. Same with the rest of the range.

The guy was dumbfounded... he couldn't see how I was able to do it.

I sat him down and taught him what I was doing, and 2 weeks later he is shifting like a pro, MUCH smoother and less destructively now. I couldn't even sleep in the truck before, the shifting was just brutal in the low range, but now... he has it down. He can go up/down, jakes on/off, etc. it doesn't matter now, he can handle the transmission in any of it's states.

I can only imagine that there are other drivers out there who have this problem and think that they are floating gears correctly. If you are shifting as fast as you would in a car, then you are doing it wrong. If your mentor taught you to do it this way, then find another driver and have them show you how they do it. It should be a nice, smooth process.


I asked the guy, "Did your mentor's gearbox make a lot of noise when you were driving his truck?"
He responded, "Yes. Quite a bit, and he only had about 400k on it."

I would hate to have the impending transmission repair bill that is coming, I think I would rather put in 3 or 4 clutches instead, lol.

 

When I was training to get my class 3 license in the oilfield (to drive wireline trucks), I was only taught by floating gears. I wasn't taught how to double clutch until after. When I took my driving test I was actually just moving my left foot up and down just above the pedal (not even stepping on the pedal) while floating the gears. The tester said my double clutching was very good, and then I asked him if I could just float the gears for the remainder of the test and he said he was okay with it. LOL