Tractor First, Right?

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner, but JD answered correctly on my behalf.

Over the course of my career I have driven many different transmissions, but have spent the most time on 13 and 18 speed transmissions. Aside from not being able to split the bottom side on a 13 they are much the same to drive. I often forget where I am driving the 15, and have to gather myself back up so to speak where as with the 13 or 18 it is pretty much automatic, and I don't have to think at all about which gear I am in. The different shift pattern of many of the 15 speeds (and a few old 13 speeds if I recall, maybe RTOO?) just goofs me up when I am not thinking about my driving well enough.

 

This is a great post, I was talking to my best buddy about this this week. He's a driver too and a #### good one, we were saying that I we can drive all day and have no memory of shifting it's just second nature. Then today I was reading an article that both made me mad and sad, this is a little piece of it.


Heaven forbid you have to push the clutch, move the shifter, or think about what gear you should be in. I'm turning into a grumpy old man.

 

Hard to keep tards satisfied that they aren't working too hard anymore.

 

Wait, people think about what gear they're in? I always just grabbed the shifter and my arm would just start moving. Couldn't tell you what gear I was in but I knew where it had to go.

While I do like my Auto there are for sure some days that I miss rowing my own gears. Always loved listening to the pipes as I'd roll through all 16 shifts loaded heavy up a hill. Nothing better than listening to that sound and just having the truck glide along without rocking my drink. I miss it. Had I specced my current truck I would have just gotten the 18.

 

While I have never seen it in a heavy duty application, only medium duty: the 7 speed spicer is the only trans I dislike more than a 15 overall. I don't like the 15 for lack of tighter ratios, I don't like the 7 because of the lack of actual space in the pattern itself.

R246
1357


Pretty tightly knit- easy to swing and miss and grab one you weren't grabbing for

 

I run into issues on the rare occasion I have to drive our daycab. It's a 10 speed and I'm too used to 13/18. That shift from 5-7 doesn't work so well, especially loaded.

Then there's the time that I drove it to go fetch a van trailer from a repair shop. Hadn't driven a manual in a few months and totally spaced on there being a clutch when stopping on a ramp. Came to a dead stop in 10th gear no clutch. Oops.

 

I could see myself doing something like that as well. Better leave the automatics in my pickup!

 

Was on the phone with my buddy who works with me. Started to slow down and the truck started bucking. Looked out the rear window thinking maybe I had blown a drive tire or something. Couldn't figure it out until the engine died and the alarm started. Shouted some bad words and fired it back up.

 

Wait, is a tard some kind of transmission upgrade?

 

No, a tard is the bottom of the barrel human. Chose to be stupid as a preteen, would naturally be wiped out before age 12 if left to mother nature, but because of interference from liberals and sappy bleeding hearts, they live to adulthood, where they are given driving privileges and sex education on how to reproduce and have tard children. Greatest disaster the world will ever see.