How to recover from lost gears?

it's gonna take a lot of practice ... seriously ... it will get better

 

Hi mpossoff, bunch of clowns here, just kidding, shifting is one of those things after years of doing, when you call someone on it, we aren't really sure how to describe it, BUT, remember, when you go in the low side, it doesn't take a lot of revs between gears. I've seen a lot of new shifters rev the engine too high when selecting a gear in low range. 3rd low range (on a 10 or 13) is a pretty good general around a slow corner gear( with out stopping). I know it's hard to look at the tach, and still shift and drive. Just remember, those low range gears are pretty close, rev wise, a couple hundred r's between them. You'll get it, don't worry, those transmissions are pretty tough. The worst thing you can do is jam it in a gear fast, as you can chip a gear or tooth.

 

Brake down to around 800 rpm and skip a gear into 8th.

 

Been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. When I was at my local job, the employer loved to slip seat you. You were in a different truck almost every day. Some trucks had 10 speeds, others had a triplex. Each truck shifted differently. Some were more temperamental than others.

 

Mercy sakes, Rubber Duck, fer sure( Convoy) 1st heavy duty truck I drove was a '63 IH tandem dump truck, gas job and a 5x3 set of sticks. It sat in the corner, and nobody was driving it, I said, why?. The boss said nobody could shift it. I asked, can I try it? I limped it out of the yard to a gravel pit around the corner, looked at the shift pattern, and I was on my way. With the gas job, I shifted so many times, I was an expert that very afternoon!

 

So what if I'm doing 52 mph? Is that still 7th gear? 5+2=7, riiiiiiight?

 

I still use this today in my head, when I looking to skip gears to slow down to match traffic.....works pretty good for any 10 speed tranny:
15 mph = 6th gear (1+5 = 6) at idle in 6th you would be at 15 mph, revved up you would be at 20 mph.
25 mph = 7th gear (2+5 =7)
35 mph = 8th gear (3+5= 8)
45 mph = 9th gear (4+5 =9)
I have found in city traffic that 6th gear is my go to gear when slowing down for stale red stoplights that will turn green fairly soon, or when making a turn...once you hit 15 mph, put it into 6th gear and go from there.

Since 6th gear is the lowest gear in the high range, I use it a lot....if you have to get into the low range, those gears tend to be the hardest to find and get into gear. But going from 6th to 5th is easy because you are only dropping one gear.
When downshifting from 10th gear, I will go to 9th, and depending on how much distance I have then brake until I slow to 15 mph and then hit 6th gear.

 

Hey now, Wooly Rhino, I present that! I'm a Swifty and I have a touch of old timers. My method is to keep stabbing at it until the grind doesn't sound so high pitched and then keep stabbing and revving until it goes in.

Actually, it sounds like the op is trying to downshift at too high a road speed for the hoped for gear. The recovery method is to try to double clutch into the next higher gear but the problem is that the newer trucks with throttle position sensor acceleration let the RPMS drop too quickly.

Some great tips here but the ones about doing math while trying to recover a missed gear are just silly.