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?

 

I drive an automatic at work. I've been at my job for 20 years. So I don't have experience with a manual transmission. I drive local and hardly drive 50 miles/day.

The example I gave in my initial post was on a road test with a local company right around the corner from our house for a part time job on the weekends. It's picking up a load of produce from the produce market about 8 miles away and bringing back the load to the warehouse and that's it. Easy work, no touch.

The truck was a 10 speed. I had trouble with 'recovering from lost gear syndrome' and asking sincerely for help or suggestions. The owner was with me for the driving test and it was noticeable I was having some difficultly. When we got to the produce market I was able to whip it into the dock like a pro. So he saw with that I could back into a dock with no problem.

I really didn't have a problem up shifting. The problem was when coming onto a highway without a stop. I was driving at about 55mph and had to merge on the highway. There was oncoming traffic so obviously I had to slow down. Seemed like I was able to down shift down to 5th ok. The problem was since I had to slow down even more I put it in neutral and tried to get it into the low range as I had to merge onto traffic and not stop completely. I tried to rev it up a bit and couldn't find the gear. I guess I was going at around 15-20 mph at this point.

At this point I knew I had to either in 3rd or 4th gear but couldn't get there.

 

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.

 

Ok let's say I'm going 55mph have to come up on a ramp onto another highway. I'm in 10th gear let's say. I see the incoming traffic and have to merge on. I have to slow down prob around 20 mph to be able to merge.

Going from 10th gear down to around 15-20mph scenario.

 

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.