How to learn manual transmission?

I remember when I had to do a drive sim at a mega carrier with the training booth things even though I already had my CDL. I asked the proctor if I could try it with the gear shifter to see how accurate it was to the real thing. He got pissy and said he didn't want his simulator damaged by someone that didn't know how to drive stick. I showed him my CDL with no auto restriction and he became infuriated. Said I'd never have a career if I pushed back on "my superiors" like that.

Anyways... Always wanted to try one of the driving sims to see how they compared to the real thing. You know, kinda like a sex doll.

Anecdote over.

 

Same with me, left foot using brake pedal, right foot matching rpms, downshiftng all the way to first or 2ndgear, using Jake's brakes down to about 4th gear.. I always try to time stoplights to keep rolling instead of coming to complete stop

 

My training tractor was an 81 R model 300 with maxitorque 5 speed and I made everyone start out double clutching teaching that 'scratch your jewels between clutches' Mack double clutch cadence to get the feel of working with the surge.

Experienced drivers were floating [those 5 speeds are easy] with the liquid movement by the end of the first day.

On the other hand it would take me a while to stop crunching a road-ranger after so much time in that Mack.

 

A little surprised nobody seems to explain how to drive a manual. I’ll give it a try. You need to know most truck transmissions have 400 RPMs step between gear. First gear has enough torque to twist drive line or break other parts if you shift high RPMs and don’t match the gears. You avoid that by shifting at 1,000 RPMs in low range. You don’t need 500HP to get truck moving. You hold foot on brakes and let cutout at ideal. Until the truck pulls. Then take foot off the brakes give it a very little power . Bring RPMs to 1,000 and shift to send gear. Keep going thru the gears in low range and shift at 1,000 RPMs because you won’t have to worry about matching the gears and your double clutching doesn’t have to be good. You also won’t get truck cab rocking. You will shift very smoothly and look like a professional. If at stop light you will go thru the first 5 gear just getting rolling thru the stop light or stop sign.

After you get moving and flip the step high range. Now you need that power ! Step on the pedal and bring RPMs up to 1600 RPMs then shift. Let RPMs drop to 1200 RPMs so don’t t shift to fast or gears will grind. At 1200 RPMs it will go into gear because remember the 400 RPMs steps between gears ? 1600-400 is 1200 RPMs. Once in gear at 1200 rpm step on the pedal bring it up to 1600 rpm keep as shifting Ang going faster. If you miss the gear at 1200 rpms you get another chance. let engine drop to 800 rpms it should go into gear 1200 rpms-400rpms is 800 rpms.. This is kinda old info now because the new engines pull at 1,000 rpm but back when we had pre emission ent like S60 or N14 or Cat those had most torque at 1,200 rpms. So you could adore RPM range for the high gears to 1,000 and 1400 rpms if you wanted. I was trained at 1200 and 1600 it pretty easy to see on dash. Don’t push clutch to the floor otherwise you will activate the clutch brake and you only need that when stopped.

 

It was for me! No matter what I did, I kept going to the wrong gears, because they're so close together. I got so frustrated that I just said f it and switched to automatic. I'd never driven manual on anything before, so there were no bad habits. I don't know how people learn so easily.

 

If you think a semi's gears are close, I can't imagine what you'd think of a manual sports car.

 

My Father taught me to drive a non-synchronous transmission. ANY torque on either the driveshaft coming from the rear end or the engine makes it hard to impossible to move the gears. To master these transmissions, you have to fully understand the engine RPMs and the speeds relative to what gear you are in. My father told me once about a driver coming down cabbage who was not paying attention and missed a gear. The driver was unable to get into any gear and almost did not make that last westbound turn.

This is why I tell green drivers not to be listening to music etc, when in places where you are going to be shifting gears. Perfectly OK if the middle of nowhere at highway speed. In some ways, driving a non-synchronous transmission is like directing an orchestra.

If I can do it, I am 100% positive most of the people today can. It's just important to remember the basics. If you don't, you can tear up a transmission or a drive train VERY easily.

 

All this is true, Brandt, but who really watches the tach? Doing a lot of city driving, you really can't spend any time not watching traffic, and while having the tach is nice (and often useful), every driver really needs to learn how to shift by audible and tactile means. My first 2 "stickshift" cars were VW type 1 Beetles, and never had a tach in either one, so that's the way I learned. Big truck transmission are different, they shift lower, over a shorter range, you need to wait long between taking it out of gear and putting it in to gear, but it's the same process; you just need to learn the specifics to what you are driving. I can really say that often I went DAYS without paying attention to the tachometer. Once in a while, I had to figure out if it was worth going UP a gear on a long uphill with the tach, but that was about all.

 

When I get into a truck I haven't driven, and before I start the engine, I push in the clutch and put the gear lever into each gear in order. In CDL school we had what looked like a old public school chair with a gear shift lever built into the base and a clutch pedal also in the base. All the trucks I've driven use either an H pattern like a Honda Civic or an H pattern with an additional central upper and lower leg between the H legs.

Either way, the more things you physically do the easier it is to learn new things. These days people have almost zero physical experience, other than eating and holding a phone, and so many more things than before are called more difficult than I would have imagined. We did have a few people with more trouble than most students but there weren't any automatics so everyone had to learn.

 

Im basically SpongeBob Squarepants when it comes to shifting gears. Bet it would be the same on even a basic manual car or truck.