Best way to cool down a clutch

Discussion in 'Trucks [ Eighteen Wheelers ]' started by gentleroger, Oct 5, 2018.

  1. gentleroger

    gentleroger Road Train Member

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    I train, which means my truck spends A LOT of time backing. With the Dt12 transmission I am running into the automated clutch over heating. Which is better to cool it down?

    Truck in neutral and idle

    Or

    Turn the truck off.


    Also, would turning off the hill hold help avoid abusing the clutch or would that make things worse?
     
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  3. driverdriver

    driverdriver Road Train Member

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    What did sem say when you asked , lmao.


    Just kidding around , I got no clue.
     
  4. gentleroger

    gentleroger Road Train Member

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    One for let the truck run, one shut it down, two "how should I know? I've only seen a picture of a p4".

    Hence why I turned to the internet. Not much more reliable, but usually a darn sight funnier and much faster.
     
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  5. Grubby

    Grubby Road Train Member

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    I would think it would cool down faster at idle. When its shut off ya get heat soak from the motor.
     
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  6. Dave_in_AZ

    Dave_in_AZ Road Train Member

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    When I saw the thread title I was thinking just wow.

    I'm still kind of in just wow mode, cause most of the mixers had autos.

    I can't imagine something getting worked harder than a mixer.

    I'm going to definitely go with leave it running, cause when we started the mixers, they stayed on all day.
     
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  7. Ke6gwf

    Ke6gwf Medium Load Member

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    I have never overheated my dt12 clutch, but based on what I know about how it works, I would guess that leaving it idling in neutral would cool it faster, because you keep the transmission oil circulating through the oil cooler system. If you shut it off, then the clutch will just be sitting in stagnant hot oil and any cooling will be slow. This is just my educated guess, but since oil flow is a good thing it think it is a safe guess lol

    Hill start assist uses the transmission clutches as brakes to hold the truck still, so there IS going to be slippage and thus heat created, plus while it is applied you will not get any cooling oil flow between the clutch discs , so I am pretty sure that turning it off would keep it cooler. However I can't say how MUCH cooler! It might not be noticeable.
    But turning it off will be good training anyway, teaching them to control their vehicle, instead of leaving it to the computer.

    Now, most stops, my dt12 tries to start me out one gear too high, meaning that it has to slip the clutches for sometimes a couple of seconds to get the truck moving.
    If you shift down one gear, or just all the way to low gear each time you stop, the slippage will be greatly reduced, and you probably won't overheat any more.
     
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