Splitting the 13-Speed

Good morning,

After a long time off the road I am back on, and driving a 13-Speed for the first time. The one thing that doesn't seem to be mentioned in any of the training materials that come up on an internet search is whether there is a need to raise the engine RPM for moving the splitter from OD to Direct. My experience so far has been that whether you are going from OD to Direct in the same gear to downshift a half-step, or when moving to the next gear to upshift a half-step, if you do not raise the RPM you will either get high-pitched syncro whine at best (happened twice), or light grinding at worst (happened twice) and maybe even a loud clunk into gear worse still (happened once).

BLUF, raising the RPM seems to be the only way to keep the thing happy, so does this mean that my shifting is too slow or my timing is bad? I am not pre-selecting the splitter but doing it in-gear, and I am releasing the torque-lock using the accelerator and clutch each time.

Thanks for your help!

Best,
Nathan

 

I haven't tried it without the clutch yet either with the lever shifts or the splitter shifts, thinking that at least it would reduce the force involved when I make a goof.

- Nathan

 

Good Morning,

Thanks for all the tips. The loads are always maxed out at 80k gross, so I tend to use the splitter for getting up to highway speeds, and for small hills. The truck is a brand new glider with re-manufactured engine and transmission, with 2900 miles on it. I haven't floated it much yet because the tranny is so tight that the stick doesn't just pop out of gear.

I wasn't able to find the instructions on the Eaton site yet, but will look again.

From what snowwy and TheDude are saying, it sounds like clutching just makes things worse and probably causes the RPMs to drop off faster hence the grinding.

The clutching idea came from the Eaton video posted on YouTube, which I think is kind of misleading because the driver is obviously running a cab and chassis with nothing on it, and so the road speed probably stays pretty constant with that set-up so that he can shift the thing in ultra slow-motion.