"Grind it till you find it"?

Have you ground a Manual? As in really grind the dam thing? Preferably while overrreving the engine while drifting slower and slower taking catcalls, teasing and trash talking?

Ive found some gears a time or two, instructors pale and say dont you let that clutch out.

That was a very long time ago. Eatons are not made to fail.

Sometimes you found a high gear, then she starts bucking and fighting you prior to stalling.

Stop it.

Start in low. ease off rolling gain 3 mph or so. Tach pegs, time to shift up. Back off hammer, wait two heartbeats by the third or 4th heartbeat you should have double clutched into 1st gear and adding power. Max tach out. Repeat for second and so on all the way up. No grinding allowed.

Come back down from top gear all the way to stopping in low.

Then repeat the exercise between 1300 and 1600 rpm. If she falls into gear you just floated, congrats. But don't get yourself a big head. Try for the next one.

Repeat up and down bobtail, then empty then loaded. Remember that to be a manual shifter is to rage against the coming brain dead automatic restrictions on your CDL.

 

It means: I don't understand road speed or my tac gauge, so I'm going to shove the shifter around the column until it falls into a space I can't yet determine. Square peg, round hole, until you find the square hole.

A technical way to say: You're having a really bad day. Or you should be put in a US EXPRESS auto.

Upon those instances where you can't find the hole I always find it helpful to shout 'HELP ME RHONDA!'... she usually comes thru.

 

I always said "if you can't find it, grind it"...and "grind me off a pound while your at it".

@KillingTime, what's a tach gauge (he says sarcastically kidding)... I learned to shift by the sound of the truck, each truck (even with the same engine/transmission manufacturer) has their own unique sounds and feels and shifts a tiny bit different. In many ways, a truck is much like a woman, they all have pretty much the same equipment, you just have to adjust how you make 'em happy to reduce the noise when you do it wrong...

 

I generally drive by sound / feel. But if you've got a lot of buzzing going on, def helps to look at the big round gauge that doesn't indicate your speed.

I've always thought women make more noise when your doing it right.

https://www.thetruckersreport.com/t...threads/shes-ah-screamer.333184/#post-5677287

 

The saying was, "if you can't find 'em, grind 'em". I've got news for ya', if I ever had a driver ( which would never happen)and I heard them grind a gear, they'd be out the door. While transmissions are tough, grinding gears ( or more accurately, CLASHING gears) grinds little bits of metal off the gears, and that gets mixed with the oil, causing bearing failures and leaks, and transmissions aren't cheap. I NEVER ground a gear, and in 35 years, never had one transmission failure. That goes right up my spine when I hear gears being ground.

 

It's an old saying for people who have trouble shifting gears.

 

It means your shifting sucks.

 

I went to one of those d*mned truck schools. I learned to shift by feel and speed 1st/tach 2nd.

I've had student come to my truck and revv the #### out of the truck, double clutch up and bounce my Curby down the street like a whipped mule. It stops as quickly as they learn to stop getting in a hurry. I tell them:

The speed will tell you WHEN you need to shift, your RPMs will tell you if you're able just yet. Don't over think it, feel it and don't be afraid of going forward; you need to if you want to get to the next stop!​

Eventually they find their groove and RELAX. The grinding stops and the shifting becomes second nature, as it should.

 

I offer this. With that old yellow Paystar conventional from hell, I guess I have to have one tractor that is a onery mule biting me in ### several times a day.

There is a form of conical gear between the transmission and final drive in that thing. The transmission is like loose after being abused for life. Im sitting in a fuel line and could not find a gear because that conical yoke had broken and refused to slide (Sort of a long gear with the cone gear around it it;s all machined and close tolerance etc.) anyway it got sloppy back there.

I found granny low put the clutch out. Final drive locked and all the power created a wheelie with my long frame was about 10 feet into the air. I punch the clutch out and boom dropped it straight down. I get moving. Made it about 200 feet to a highway junction before I noticed my axle ends bleeding fatally that axle oil inside both of them back there creating a hazmat sitaution. Threw the interclock in added power to get out of that dam intersection. Then CLANK! failed on the shoulder.

Anyhow. If this was up to the boss man who was a pup half my age telling me I don't know how to shift I had to let it go. Work place violence is not a adequate situation resolver for that. He is boss he can say whatever he wants to. But lies I wont stand for. lol.