Trouble floating

I have had a Class B license for years and driven busses and such but this spring I just got my Class A. I did not go to a school, just practiced with a neighbor’s truck. I had to teach myself how to float and how to back.

When floating Sometimes I have trouble with the shift not coming all the way out of gear or not going all the way into gear and I have to use the clutch. I am applying pressure to the shifter when I let off of the fuel to get out of gear and it feels like it is going into the next gear then it stops. This happens more with the lower gears 1 & 2, 5 & 6 than the others

any ideas on what I am doing wrong?

 

may be shifting too slow or need to apply a bit of throttle. I know in my 579 i need a tap.of acceleration when going up to a higher gear when loaded.

 

I had issues floating so I just went back to double clutching.

 

This may or may not be applicable, but, I have discovered through questions and getting answers a bit of a correlation between drivers having shifting trouble and having music etc playing. Even veteran drivers have to be able to hear the engine and the sound of the road. I also suggest as @CrappieJunkie suggested, start using the clutch.

 

In all fairness I liked the control of the clutch. I was always taught RPMs. Couldnt get it down so clutch it is.

 

It is the pressure, you need to monitor the fuel/rpm. You may be decelerating too quickly before pulling it out of gear, or the opposite. There is too much weight or pressure on the gear still.

 

Lower gears are more likely to stick. As others have said, when it does stick, a little nudge of the accelerator usually does the trick.

I find floating a whole heckuva lot easier when the weight is evenly split between drives and trailer. Even a couple thousand pounds difference can be noticeable. In fact I sometimes decide whether or not I want to scale based on how easy the floating is.

 

Same truck or are you having issues on any manual truck? My KW was horrible to shift. When I had the transmission out I found out the shift bars were jamming up in the housing.

 

Are you shifting at low rpm in those basement gears? Because it's very tough to float those out at higher rpms. I often clutch out / float in if I'm in the low range in situations requiring the extra rpm: soft ground / extreme grades. The combined rpm/speed drop is just too fast compared to what your muscle memory is used to handling when floating.

 

Only thing I can suggest, is higher RPMs, held for a couple seconds,maybe,then goose it a bit higher, let off fuel quick, and pull it out of gear. To keep from jamming them, you can let it slow, then raise RPMs while in neutral, then slip it into next gear, even over rev it a bit, and catch the next gear on the RPMs way down.Fool proof way to keep from grinding, till you get used to the trans. Treating it as 2 separate shifts, instead of trying to time both gears and 1 shift just right. A lot of times I end up doing it that way anyways, as I didn’t make the shift fast enough, or don’t want to chance biting a tooth off. You just need get used to the trans. They all seem to shift a little different. I’ve often noticed that, even on a New fleet of identical Trucks.