Judging downshift distance

In the beginning better to be safe at slowing down a bit earlier and then building up to judging distance and depth perception. Explain he needs to brake brake brake down to 1000 rpm and shift go down each gear this way to practice then he can practice skipping gears based off speed etc.

Brake brake brake down to 1000 and shift....brake brake brake down 1000 and shift. If he doesn't brake then get a bit louder with saying BRAKE! Of course this is for a Volvo so use whatever the lower rpm is for the truck and shift at that point.

 

I do not use down shift distance as a subsitute for stopping distance. If she is working that hard and needs a downshift I'll do it.

Now if there is a stop sign at the bottom of a hill or whatever the jake and air brakes will all combine with downshifting to stop. But that's not too often.

Occasionally in traffic light country I'll take a few gears down to be a little bit slower coming up on a red light that is fixing to go green. It depends.

Sometimes you will have to use your air brakes really much without a thought to downshifting anything until the immediate problem is resolved. You will find that you will be somewhere in the middle of your transmission or even slower to get going back up to speed again.

The main thing is always keep moving where possible. It's easier to keep rolling than to restart a stopped truck.

Most all heavy truck engines have a RPM just below torque where you can down shift and get into the next one down without any difficulty. If you are scratching it you havent either kicked your engine rpms up for the next gear down or you are rushing it. Be consistent.

 

What are you driving that you Jake down to 1000 rpm before shifting? I've got an e model cat that will hate you for doing that and I've been told you can run them down to 14 or 13 which makes it suck fuel like train.

 

From 10th gear to 9th is probably three inches, but going from 9th to 8th may be 3.5 inches.

 

Haha and people think im a #######

 

Is this a student driver or a CDL school graduate? How many miles driving experience?

 

I'd love to be able to take you out in the truck and show you however seeing that is not possible we'll try and explain it, its all about speed and revs you need to match the right gear speed and revs when change down a gear you can miss a gear if its a steep incline so go from say 18th to 16th or back to 15th if the speed is slow enough, an experienced driver will know what revs will match his speed and gear So if i'm going up a hill say in 18th gear doing 65 mph and the truck slows up to about 35 mph i'll drop it straight into 15th by reving up to about 1600 putting gear straight in.

 

You forgot to add "asking for a friend" to the end so we know you aren't really asking for yourself.