Mystery gear.....

Good way to cook the transmission. If Eaton wanted you to use it, they'd have made it part of the shift pattern.

 

Yes you can split the gear while you're in the crazy hi hole for an overdrive . It's like four and a half and 4 and 3/4 then you shift up to fifth. I've done it a million times don't know what the scientifical term for it but it gives you an extra two gears that fit between 4 and 5. There have been a couple of mountain roads where 4 is too low and 5 is too high.

 

By the way I've done it a bunch of times with a Rockwell 13 not sure if it can cause damage but I've never had any. Please don't blame me for toasting anything. I'm only going off of my own experience. Other people might weigh in on this with real mechanical knowledge. And you should get really good with your clutch before using that to take off empty.

 

I've experienced this gear in 9 and 13 speed Eaton.

 

Yeah come to think of it my 359 has a 13-speed eaton and I have used these gears in it as well I've never heard of anybody having an issue with it but you never know

 

No, that gear has to be there because the main box is a 5 speed. You can't just magically delete that gear when you flip the range selector up to high. If you ever rebuilt one you'd understand.

 

So what's the harm in using it? It's there it works it doesn't hurt anything. No I haven't personally rebuilt on. Just asking.

 

Low gear is at the back of the main box ( not low range ). The driven gear on the main shaft has very few teeth, it's small in diameter. This means only about 1 and a half teeth are in mesh at the same time carrying the load. As your go toward the front of the transmission, gears get higher and larger. The larger gears have more teeth in contact at the same time equally distributing the load. Also the bearings at the front of the countershafts are much larger than the ones one the rear. These are made to carry the higher torque and HP needed in higher gears.
I was taught to ease off bobtail in high range low. Also to drop down into that gear while waiting for a light to change and such. That can keep from having to split and or clutch with some transmissions.
There have been some other posts on this forum about this subject that educated me some. I try to never use that gear with a load anymore. I am just a occasional driver anymore and old habits are hard to break.
Search block on top right of your screen. Some times you have to ask in different ways. I thank some of them were 15 spd related.
If you use it baby foot the throttle. That's how I was taught before I knew anything and I also had no problems. Sometimes I did here an odd sort of whine. That normally happened when I misjudged a light. It changed and I was way back. Then I would lay in to it a bit trying to get through the light be for it changed.