Shifting a ten speed

Stay out of 1st gear unless you're on a 10% grade uphill with a full load from a dead stop. You just don't need first gear too often.

 

Bruuumm.. Pull out of 5th into neutral, pause, 2 fingers barely pushing, slip into 6th. Brum pause bruuum pause, bruuuuuuuummmmmmm paaauuuusseeee brrruuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmm


Listen to the trucks around you. If they arent blasting thru gears theyr 9s and 10s rather than 18s and 13s. You either half shift or whole shift. A half [splitters, on 13 and 18] drop 250rpm. A 9 or 10 is whole shifts and drops 500. Listen to your neighbor. And dont ever force it.. Evvvvvveeerrrrrrr.

 

THAT and steeper grades, when she settles into a RPM range that is moving upgrade in a steady working pace, even if it is walking speed... DO NOT FORCE her and whatever you do on your life, DO NOT. Take. her out of gear. DO NOT. Let her get to the top in her own time. God is pleased to amuse himself watching us climb all over them.

The days of here kitty kitty and racing with dinner on top for the winner is long gone.

I doubt anyone is still alive that understands that call.

 

Forget about using 1st gear unless you’re loaded and starting off on a hill...

Start out in second if you’re loaded and on flat ground.

Start out in 3rd if you’re empty..

Those are my tips of the day...Personally I refuse to drive a 10spd or an automatic..

Should you ever get a chance to use a 13 or 18 speed jump on it..you’ll never want to go back to a 10..

 

Also, bears worth mentioning you only lightly use the clutch, if you press it too far it will not shift, power up , moving down the road, lightly depress the clutch only far enough so that the shifter falls out of gear with just slight pressure, keeping light pressure on the shifter, let the clutch up and slightly depress it again, should slide right into gear, your rpm deference should be about 400 rpm up or down depending on if your speeding up or slowing down.

Its about rpm control, try running up to 1800 then shift as the rpms drop down to 1400 should drop right into gear. of course the reverse of this for down shifting

 

I agree with this post. I would grind gears all the time till I began to imagine how trucks sounded taking off in my mind. I tried making mine sound exactly like the noises in my head and realized I was trying to jerk it into the next gear too soon. When I sat back and relaxed and made it sound like a truck then it worked for me.
Of course i've been driving two and a half years and still grind gears sometimes. Most of the time its when I get in a hurry. Pull out in front of someone too close and be trying to quick catch gears and that gearshift "hangs" on you, ya that sucks because your whole truck violently rocks and most of the time the next gear hangs too. Somewhere in there I feel very new yet lol.
My point is, relax. Tension makes for serious gear grinding.

 

Low range in my past trucks shifted at 1100-1300. As a rule low range shifted 2-300 RPMS less than high range. IIRC

 

He will gain that precision in natural time of his driving years.

I sometimes drive out of range either below or above depending on the situation, usually winter. A old 80's Mack v8 will do it down to 770ish if you fed her just a little fuel as that RPM fell off. There is hardly any tension on driveline and very little risk of spinning, but you might drag the drives on ice.

 

Facts on that last part

 

Since I had my 13 rebuild, I can’t have a decent day without grinding a few gears in. They replace quite a few NEW gears and the edges ain’t rounded of like when there worn. It’s like a whole new truck.