Grinding Gears

If I am heavy, and I feel it is essential for the safety of me or someone else Im jakeing. Ill take my chances on a fine, cool brakes are priceless.

 

Great advise for those that have yet to learn how clutch brakes are toasted

 

Thats what trolly valves are for,keeps the power unit binders in full reserve.

 

I have seen folks on the altamont think that way with smoke off the rear duallies....most are o/o & are trying to get more life out of their tracktor brakes i guess. You often see trucks on the grapevine the same way. Be very cafefull pulling the johnson bar down to slow you down. Not trying to tell ya what to do, or 2nd guess ya...just don't want other newbs to get the idea that using the jimmy bar to stop/slow is not without consequences.

 

For the Newbies and Wannabe's (I know I'll hear from all the experts about this):

Find you a garage or truck dealership with a parts dept. Ask them to let you see a clutch assembly. They consist of a large diameter clutch disc, a steel "floater" plate, another large clutch disc and a huge pressure plate. They're very heavy (pick one up). Now go to your part store and check out the one for your car. Look at both trannys. Truck stuff is huge and heavy. Your basic high-school physics tells you that spinning huge, heavy stuff is much harder to stop or slow down. Now look up the amount of torque that truck engine puts out. That's why you double-clutch and stuff like that. You do not ever try to shift a tractor like your car/pickup... EVER!!! You do not even talk about that where real truckers can hear you.

Learn to double-clutch and go through the gears properly (it's too hard on my widdle leg.... Good God!!! What are you, a ballerina????). Time enough when you've got a few years on you to get fancy.

Try screwing around without knowing what you're doing will result in you puking a tranny and having the pro's laughing in your face.... and getting fired.

 

Actually to engage the clutch brake you push the pedal all the way to the floor.

And, as I think someone said earlier, you should only do this when the truck is at a full stop. Doing it when you are in motion will blow out the clutch brake.

Surfing around in here & looking at the various questions & answers can be more entertaining than reading the personals on Craigslist.

 

grinding from a stop is usually the clutch brake just worn out and its not even slowing it down. so ur trying to stick it in while the input shafts spinning. biggest thing to #### up a clutch break is to press the clutch to deep on a range change. if ur using the clutch to shift u should only be pushing it a lil bit.neways, so after awhile of looking like a dill at a trafic light grindind away u just give it a good old RAM. caaclunkkk. I was driving a rental prostar and the clutch brake was none exsistant. if i came to a stop in nuetral then tried to get it intogear it would be a nice hard grind. it didnt matter if i backed off the clutch a lil bit or had it mashed to the floor the #### was just worn out. thats why it was a rental. usually had to coast to a stop in 4th then it would easily go in 1 or 2.

 

True Story:

I once applied for a job to drive for Superior Ready Mix in San Marcos CA. All went well until I took my driving test.
My road tester was vehemently against my use of downshifting when coming to a stop at the end of an off ramp.

He said; and I quote, "All you stupid freight jockeys think you need to constantly downshift all the time"
I said: "How do you do it then?"
He said: "Pull it out of gear and use the brakes!"
I said: "So you want me to not be in control of the vehicle by pulling it out of gear while we're still rolling?!?"
He said: "Yes"
I said: "That's crazy, is this your first day?"

Needless to say, I didn't get the job even though I didn't grind it once.

Anyway, the drive tester was wrong. Always downshift and use the engines braking power to your advantage.
Your stops will be smoother, you save the brakes, and you remain more in control of the vehicle.

 

You don't need to downshift every gear and that''s crazy if you think so. You skip gears on the way down until you're rolling slow enough to stop. That doesn't mean you'll be coasting with the clutch in but it does mean you'll be in the right gear for the speed. Then when the truck is completely stopped you push the pedal down to the floor to engage the clutch brake to select the gear you need.

 

Especially on these new Cascadia trucks!! With the jake on the RPM's drop super fast!