Single Clutching on an 18 speed?

Shouldn’t have to use the clutch at all to shift a constant-mesh transmission like an Eaton-Fuller. Shift a European synchro type box without the clutch you’ll eventually destroy the synchros.The old unsynchronized crash boxes you had to double-clutch. All that spinning junk inside slowed down too fast to make the shift if you didn’t, and miss with one of those it’s going to hurt. You ever see any of us grey haired old guys that will only grab a shift knob with 2 fingers? Those transmissions are the reason for that. The Brown-Lipe 3 and 4 speed auxiliary boxes were notorious. They were like shifting a farm tractor transmission ffs, and sounded about the same. Shifting gears used to cause lost time injuries. People called the Spicer auxiliaries “Brownies”, but they are actually a different transmission altogether. A constant mesh transmission you wont get out of gear with both hands on the stick and one foot on the dash with a load on it, you have to break torque. You can do that by partial clutch disengagement, or lift off the fuel. Which one do you think wears more parts? I don’t want to have to pull a transmission out to change a throw-out bearing before the clutch is finished, and I certainly don’t want to change a flywheel because somebody insists on constantly slipping a clutch with ceramic facings.

 

I learned to drive from two guys. One never used the clutch, the other used it quite a bit and was a master at shifting with the jake. They used to argue about it a lot. They never came to throwing hands but it was close a couple of times.
It was confusing at first but I'm glad I learned both ways. Starting out of a steep landing it was good to know how to pick up a couple in the brownie without laying the driveline out in the dirt.

 

I started as an apprentice at Werner 20 years ago. Officially, they required double clutching, for the purpose of their final driving test, if nothing else. Everybody there knew it was one big B.S. Garry, my trainer, told me outright "I recon you gotta know how to do this. Just so you know, it ain't pretty!"
I did not double clutch - felt so unnatural - their Freightliners were mostly equipped with the Super 10 transmission - which I think must be the thing of the past now. At the exam, there was an easy going guy in Dallas, TX terminal - he did not care about me floating...he was easy, I even killed the engine at the Interstate ramp stop, he pretended not to see...

Today, just 1st gear and the reverse are only the reasons when I pressed the pedal.

 

I remember those arguments too. If you had a Small Cam shimmed and buttoned up to “bush spec” like everybody here ran them, the cam was fragile enough already without torturing it with shock loads from the Jake on every shift. I think that’s what those disagreements were rooted in. But like you said, if you were out in the goo on something steep and needed a shift that was about the only way to do it without a disastrous result. We all did that enough.

 

I use the Jake on the 1st stage if I'm loaded and starting up hill. You'll never be able to get it out of 1st otherwise because how slow the macks drop off. After I'm in 2nd I turn the Jake's off I can usually hit 3rd then

 

The old Econodynes were hilarious. You could smoke 1/2 a cigarette in the time it took them to fall back to 1200 from 2100. But you could drive them all day on the highway and only have it out of 5th twice.

 

That's how the early E-7s are too. Low to 1st gear wind it up to 2100 and it drops back in right around 1100-1200. The 13sp really made a big difference on this

 

In the late ‘80’s early ‘90’s the guys around here running at US weight were getting the big fuel mileage with E7 350’s and 6 speeds. They were just as good on fuel as a 60 Series.