Random Question of the Day

not lifting your foot completely off the fuel pedal between shifts to let rpms drop correctly.

 

shouldnt have to rev the truck up , put it in a lower gear if your taking your test i think you have to start in first, thats how wv is but anyways

hold your foot on the brake and let out of the clutch slowly until you feel it grab, as soon as that happens let off the brake and go about your business, you wont ever roll back...

but dont ride the clutch

 

How about trying to double clutch or float the gears in the car? And then you look around real quick to see if anyone around you noticed....

 

OK i had to bring this up front again as i found out ,

I AM TOTLY WRONG , in the above statement ,,let me say it again i was totally wrong , the biggest hurtle

IS THE SHIFTING THE GEARS

as i just finished first week of school , i had to bring this back up as i was ##### backwards ,, lol

you know you would think it would go in gear easier now with all the rounded parts in the clutch

 

That's right. Never ever should you apply power to get the truck rolling unless you're stuck on a hill and granny won't get you moving. You don't have to use first gear either. You select the gear that will move the truck without applying power. If you do apply power you can twist a drive shaft along with other damage to the drive line.

You don't need to use every gear either. Going up while you're loaded you'll have to use all of them but down shifting you should be able to skip gears. So the biggest problem I've seen with new drivers is not being able to match the road speed with a certain gear.

We've talked before about floating gears and I still stand behind the concept that every new driver should know how to double clutch before floating any gears. Not knowing the truck and floating gears will raise the risk of banging a gear. Banging a gear is not grinding or rubbing a gear but a loud bang and the tranny jumps out of gear.

What these CDL schools are missing is the instruction of taking care of the equipment. In the old days if you hurt the truck in any way you got slapped in the back of the head and was promptly corrected to do it right. If you take care of the truck the truck will take care of you.

You can always tell a new driver that doesn't know how to shift when he or she would "shotgun" the engine on the up shifts. That would tell everyone that he or she does not know how to shift correctly and is either rushing or taking too long on the shifting. The same driver most likely would be shifting against the peg. Taking a relaxed approach and shift in the power band will be better on the truck than running the pizz out of it. Try progressive shifting and see if you can master that after you've been out there for awhile. It's just fun to do and you'll save on fuel if you have the right transmission.

 

thanks gas
i do think my trainer would rather not have me floating gears at this time , and I'm pritty sure but the state examiner might have a problem with it also ,,when i takethe road test ,,

and i know on starts i use 2nd gear works fine but as you said no accelerator ever
I'm doing fine we made a few 15 mile runs today with in town and never missed a gear , but have one guy in the truck that i don't think he will remember how to drive a car by Monday let alone a big truck today he reverted back to day one in training ,
but we are lucky that out trainer is calm and cool with us since day one .
but i did have a ups trainer run by me and stick his head out and lol at us lol

i seen a lot of teams out there today I'm assuming the snider and swift , and other company trucks all had trainers in them i assume lol

 

Just finished school with a nice guy that had the same issue.....killed the truck so many times the first week we lost count... ..

..... we liked to tease him (we all got along very well) because two of us were already familiar with stick shifts and admittedly were "clutch riders"...... we explained to him that WE would never be have trouble taking off or sliding but our future mechanics were going to have a real issue with the wear we put on clutches!!

In all honesty I think he was in the better position........ he learned to deal with the clutch and didn't have the bad habit of riding it........ much better on his future truck.

My "issue" as a new driver is a particular gear...... 4th....downshifting..... it seems that when I try to float down to it.... the darn thing likes to disappear on me .... when I go to find it I inevitably need to be down in 3rd or I am still so high that I need 5th...........

Oh well...... I figure as long as I have 3rd and 5th to save me I will work it out with 4th eventually........

(and yes, if I am very careful and watch my rpms I can "find" 4th..... I just can't seem to get a "feel" for it like the other gears....)

 

not keeping the rpm's down far enough, progressive shifting, you don't need to put it up against the govonor every shift. 1300-1500 in the high side will move you domn the road just fine. dosn't sound as good, but will keep the engine and tranny togeather better