Trouble double clutching smoothly?

If you are coming out of 6th high into 4th low range with splitter add two heartbeats and use the time to rev your engine. (Where is that 5th anyway? It might be too much of a jump...) You will have to kick your engine higher to get into a lower gear like 4th in the low range side from high range. You did not say what transmission in particular.

If you bought a pair of boots with a small heel and square you can sort of plant the heel on the deck just so and that will give you the clutch down you need without going too far. I was fairly close to your size in my time probably a inch or two off here and there.

Another thing is that seat should have a slide lock so you can keep it one spot as you work that clutch. The more it moves back the more leg you add to the clutch.

Shifting is not a competition or a rush. (If you were actually in a hurry, traffic, terrain etc you would be floating in a pinch but that comes later when you pick it up) Slow and easy does it with a little rev on that engine. Some engines are tired and dont want to rev. Get on it harder with a stab on the hammer then lay on it to keep RPMs there. (Todays computer engines might not like that... depending.)

Ultimately you have to practice and do it. Remember grinding aint gonna. She aint gonna. Not even God can make a grinder go into THAT gear. No way in hell. It will freeze over first. The reason is it is unsyncronized. So you have to wait for either the guts to spin down to speed or spin up to match road speed of the transmission and final drive. You are the syncronizer. If she scratches at you dont lean into it grinding like a stubborn. Tap her out and try the next one down and be quick.

Do NOT whatever you do make a habit of taking her out of gear downgrade. Or even upgrade if she is on her knees. What you gots is all you gonna get until the top or bottom. You do not want to learn how to runaway a big rig backwards or forwards.

Decades of truckers generally teach that you come down in the gear you came up in. Generally. Todays trucks with bigger engines and jacobs etc can really get up and go compared to the old iron in mountain work.

I can type until the fingers are blue, but ultimately you just have to use your own heart as a timer to count out the pauses as you come up or go down in your shifting. Remember that Tach RPM is about 400 RPM apart in each gear from each other more or less. Say 1200 to 1600. Cruise at highway speed will come out to 1450 to 1550.

Once you know your particular trucks two numbers then everything else falls into place. As long you don;t lean on Mr Grind. You will never get past mr grind.

Oh. One final thought. Ever. If you come out of high for whatever. and got into a lower gear? And you hear that CLUNK and feel the tractor lean out a little bit on it's air-ride? Do not whatever you do allow that clutch to come out, you will tear something out. (The problem is you find a gear lower than what the tractor will accept. She will do it for you one time but you will understand just how fragile that drive train really is.)

 

It comes with time. Also the fact that companies love to give new drivers the run down piece of crap with a million miles on it. Making it hard to shift.

 

I remember a tractor from I think Keywest in Baltimore during training road trip, the odo was too far out past a million and they were saying it would have either 2 or even towards 3 million but no one knows for sure.

The transmission on that one sounded just like a crate of parts being shaken by paul bunyan all the way up to white marsh and all the way back, fixing to fall apart and scatter all over the freshly paved highway that year on 95. Perfect pavement.

I told the team two things, one I would not tolerate this old thing very long and their computer to the minute tracking of say to norfolk in those days was too much. I never got the job thankfully. And the shifting? HA.. the stick I think was a road ranger 10 and you used all the empty air between driver seat, pax seat dash and halfway to the curtain on that old eagle conventional. And somewhere down below is a gear. You just had to find it.

While the truck acoustically tore itself apart. Never before or since... what a trip.

 

yeah 6th to 4th does sound like kind of a big jump. Our instructors were having us do 7th to 5th. From 7th, once you see the needle pass 15 mph, hit the switch and do the downshift. As far as your extra beat goes on downshifting, one thing that helped me a lot was to visualize a seesaw connecting your feet. Any time that clutch comes out, your fuel foot is going in. So even if you miss the gear on the downshift and you have to gas it again, your clutch foot is automatically coming out at the same time.

Drove manuals for 12 years and I agree it's a completely different beast. But once you relearn the muscle memory, you'll be smooth as butter (well, at least as smooth as you were driving a car manual).

 

I agree, skipping that 5th in the OP's case. WHY??

There is one transmission I have trouble with and thats the old Eaton 10 speed company crap with tall gears. You would come out of something like 6th high on the far side near the pax seat, stick into neutral and then all the way into the spring against your seat and back into 5th low. That takes a extra moment. If you were coming out of 6th with that one and going into 4th low you are essentially adding like 800 RPM difference if not a touch more to accomodate the skipped 5th and simply putting your stick back to where it was this time in low range 4th. (Assuming your reverse and granny low is not numbered)

Edit, REVERSE what I wrote about that spring. When you come out of 5th low into 6th high you cross the box back towards the drivers seat. I apologize for the confusing.

 

Previous experience of shifting gear in a car, suv, or pickup, or anything with a sychronized transmission will make learning to shift an 18-wheeler more difficult. It is easier to teach someone who has only driven automatic 4-wheelers than to teach some who has lots of experience shifting in cars.

Experience shifting gears in cars and trucks will ALWAYS cause a newbie to press the truck's clutch too deep and engage the clutch brake, ALWAYS.

If you shift a 4-wheeler like you are supposed to shift an 18-wheeler your "Honda" would need a new clutch before the end of the week. Likewise, if you shift in atruck" like one would shift a "Honda" you will ruin the clutch brake in a month, and stall the truck every day.

The only skills shifting in 4-wheelers that applies to 18=wheelers is throwing the stick and pressing on the 3rd pedal. The difficulty is caused Learning Interference. The skills SEEM simililar enough that your subconscience tells you how to do the skill. But, this skill requires a different timing and movements.

 

Remember the transmission shifts the same every time. You shift at the same rpm almost every time when accelerating.

One thing that annoys me is trying to teach shifting by road speed. Ignore that. A 10spd trans has a 450ish rpm drop, so call it 500rpm. Pay attention to your tach, because its about engine speed. Pulling an empty trailer you don't have to wind out the engine as much as when loaded, so you don't have to spin the engine to 1600 or 1700rpm on every shift.

Remember slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

 

If u try to get into the gear and it grinds just give a bump on the throttle with light pressure on the gear ur trying to get in and it will fall into place when rpms come up to the right point. I wish they would teach u to float gears in school because it helps u understand rpms much better and how to be smooth with accelorator because the stick will only fall out of gear and go into gear at the exact rpms. Where as with the clutch u just need to be within a range and have more room for error, which in my opinion doesnt really help u learn and is hard on the transmission. But just give it time it is like riding a bike, kind of. I been in an automatic for a year and just got back on a 13 speed and i been having a tough time myself but its all coming back to me after a week or two