Need help with downshifting please (LA area)

Thank you this just reinforces my understanding that I was reving too high when downshifting the low gears. I think next try I will pass without a problem. I just need to get in a truck before hand to practice it a little to become confident again. Maybe i can find someone that will let me on craigs list?

 

What is this confidence. Come on now. Big trucks are fun. Not a purgatory testing ground where you have no future if you flub something in front of someone who likely as not has done the same thing.

I remember my first run onto I-495 rush traffic. Knuckles were white and I turned into a post all stiff and unable to process anything. All these people want out now and Im in the way. Instructor starts talking to me. Whats amatta wid you. You come down here all the way from Baltimore in this stuff. Whats the problem? Loosen up.

If I was going slow then I was doing even less. Which riled the traffic around me even more. How much worse can things get?

One piped up, wait until a motorcade comes through.

Motorcades? Whats that?

I think about those days and its amazing how a idiot or even a imbecile like me managed to get away with it.

 

sing this song and say clutch fuel clutch

 

Itchy Scratchy, don't scratch the kitty.

Here is one tune that was essentially a metronome useful for shifting.

 

I can get those high gear downshifts good but anything below 4th gear is what gave me trouble. I believe i was reving too high

 

what truck type

 

It was a newer Volvo 10 speed daycab

 

look up on youtube

 

Those lower gears will all go in at a very low speed. Stay out of them, till needed, that is let it drop down, and slow down, then try to downshift, increasing rpms as needed. Sometimes better to just let them fall, then pick them up, instead of trying to match it on a perfect drop

 

Each one is different.
They're like women.
Similar in base model.. but each has it's own characteristics.

You just have to find that Sweet Spot.
Once you find it you're gold.