Floating Gears

Coming from a newbie Is it better to use the Clutch to shift ?

 

In my opinion, if you have never double-clutched before, then yes.

Others will tell you differently, but floating gears will come naturally as you gain experience and familiarity with your truck.

While some combine it all at once, I learned to float gears in two phases.

1. My upshift learning was done during a Chicago rush hour of all places. I was familiar with the truck and how it shifted, what the speed & rpm ranges were, how quick I was in moving between the gears, etc.. This was very easy for me. Once I was comfortable with the first few gears, I expanded my floating range to all my gears going up. I did this entirely on my own and it came very naturally (my trainer at the time was asleep and never said a word to me about how to float).

2. I don't remember exactly when I got the downshifting float figured out. It was after learning the upshifting and I do remember that this was the harder of the two for me. Matching the rpms to my road speed when floating down just seemed weird to me. It came with practice.

The one thing I learned about floating was to take your time, don't hurry anything.

Once you learn to float, will you ever use your clutch again (other than starting / stopping)? Yup, you sure will. You'll know when you need to.

Good luck!

 

When you are new it can be hard to understand what you are feeling from the gear selector, but that is what I have found to be the key to learning to smoothly float. Practice, practice, practice on a level surface, unloaded is better and absolutely do not force the gears because without the clutch taking the load off the transmission if you force it then it will engage HARD and you could do serious damage.

Just before you are ready to leave the gear you are in you can start applying a small amount of pressure on the shift lever. Now let off the throttle and it should come out of gear easily. If there is resistance you are not taking all of the load off of the transmission, but usually this is the easy part.

To get into the next gear you need to do your best to estimate the RPM spread and gently move the selector towards the next gear. I stress the gently part. If you are close but not quite perfect you should feel a thumping preventing you from going into the next gear - this thump is your guide and it means you are close, just not quite perfect. If there is grind, especially fast grind, the RPMS aren't even close so don't force it. Adjust the throttle gently and you should feel a hole open up and it falls into gear.

It may sound like that is a lot to process when you are rushing to get back into a gear but it is very important when you are floating that you do not rush the gear changes because you don't have the clutch helping to protect you from damaging that transmission.

That's my 2 cents. It worked for me and two people I have trained to float gears while trying to protect my brand new 18 speed tranny.

 

Every time you engage your clutch you take a microscopic amount off of the clutch. That clutch only has so many presses till its going to need to be replaced. If you can avoid using it by floating the gears you might double or even triple its life. The same can be said for brakes. Use engine compression as much as possible, this extends the life of the brake surfaces. Most company drivers probably don't give a tinkers ####, but I guarantee you an owner operator will!

 

Xrayman wish you would change your profile pic. I cant stop staring at it!!!

 

Yup, I get that. And that isn't your fault, that is the fault of a bad trainer. A decent trainer would have you floating gears in a day. What I was trying to stress is that when you hit that grinding you need to stop trying to press the gear in, back out of it a little so you aren't just grinding and feather the throttle up and down and feel for that hole to open up and the gear to fall in. If you are too aggressive you'll just get grind, grind, bang! And that is when floating is worse on the truck than just double-clutching.

In my experience when you get a lot of grinding you are guessing too high on your RPM's, so relax the pressure on the gear selector and let your RPM's come back down a few hundred, put a little light pressure on the gear you want and start walking the RPM's back up. It still might hit harder than you like, but until you know what the RPM spread needs to be you just have to feel for it. And if you don't catch it right away, don't be scared to go right back into the previous gear, get your RPM's back where you want and try again. To this day I still mess up gear changes, go to shift and the gear sticks, or try and go into the next gear and it only partially catches. We all do it, just try and be gentle and feel what is actually happening in the transmission as best you can. This is going to be different than you are used to because when you clutch it unloads the transmission and you don't feel the feedback in the stick anymore. That is why people like me who have been floating for a while cannot double-clutch worth a darn anymore.

 

You aren't doing enough premature wear to worry over it, honestly. These things are built to last a long time. You do more damage trying to float and grinding and banging than you do just clutching. I wish more companies and trainers understood that a gentle driver, either clutching or floating, is better on the equipment than someone struggling to learn something they aren't ready for. I'd rather a little extra wear on the clutch than a transmission exploding into pieces on a hill or knocking the teeth off a gear because they were trying to do something they shouldn't have been doing. In my experience, as you get familiar with your truck floating is something that comes naturally.

 

What he said, ^^^ trying to rush it will kill you. You will find a pace to the shifting, if your running up near 1900+ like a lot of guys do when they first start trying, your up to high on rpms, let those rpms fall. And lightly feel for the next gear, you may feel the spot pass. Just a little gas to move the rpms back up. Also come back and tell us what explination helped. Better feedback through feedback..