How to recover from lost gears?

That has happened to me more times than I want to admit. Sometimes I had the splitter up. Others I was hunting too high. The more you become familiar with your current road speed, rpm ranges each applicable gear, the easier it gets. 6 months and I am over the steepest part of the learning curve. I still have a lot of improving to do, but now its coming at a more gradual pace with more examination and deciphering. I should be pretty proficient at one year experince , I would hope. I understand a lot better why so many companies want 1-2 years experience. It takes as awhile to get reaaaly good at it.My first month or two, I was just surviving.

 

Yup, now try bouncing between 4 trucks with 3 diffrent trannys between them, and 1 of the has no 2nd gear.... whats that sound? Just bits of my clutch no worrys

 

Excellent video, simple and shows it well.

 

20 mph 2+0=2nd gear, 60 mph 6+0= 6th gear?

 

Don't go into the neutral gate unless you are stopping. If you are slowing down below the high range gear then shift down to the low range gear. Always keep shifting don't coast out of gear. If you keep shifting up & down the gears and with time you will become a master/shifter. I have got more jobs on the drive test because of being proficient at shifting.

 

When I was an Instructor.

I had a length of cement long enough to take the student up through the first gear above the splitter. Then back down through to a stop B4 running out of real estate. (then they straight-back to the beginning).

They had to be able to do that B4 moving on to what comes next. Never-mind going out on a public roadway.

 

After many miles of driving/shifting it is easy to drop from 10 to 6 or even into low range while still rolling. Going fron 55mph to 20mph sounds like a lack of reading traffic flow. However that's not the issue here. Rpm & mph are the 2 factors that a driver learns to match. There are different thoughts on this and you will find what works for you. My approach is clutching and matching my rpms by watching the tach. There is a 250/500 rpm give or take 50-100 rpm split for shifts. It works in any truck and I've drove a few. ;-%

 

After thinking about this for a few moments. You have to be joking or trying to get drivers riled-up.

You couldn't possibly be driving 15 years in new jersey & not know how to shift.

Coming to a complete stop in the middle of an on-ramp to a limited-access highway (because you can't shift) is unbelievably & frighteningly dangerous (and illegal).

I understand some states have started adding a restriction to the CDL for "automatic transmission only" if that is what is used during the road test.