StandardShift.com

Welcome to my latest adventure...

How was floating the gears?

yeah, i meant to comment on this. looked like fun, but i sensed (noticed) a struggle for a few minutes there. are you training to be a driver??

Floating the gears is surprisingly easy once you get used to the lack of spring tension in the shifter. It's way too easy to miss a gear by hitting the wrong gate (you can see it happen in the video). What I found interesting was that floating was easier than double clutching. Not looking for a career change at this time, just wanted to try something new that looked like fun. And it was!

I've been tempted by a truck driving career. I'd be curious how reversing one them will be. I'm sure with practice it's not bad.

How was the clutch?

The clutch was light, kinda like what you'd expect in a passenger vehicle. It engages near the top of its travel and has to be let out slower than you would in a car, or else the truck will lurch forward (1500 ft-lbs torque). You have to do no-gas starts in a truck with that much torque or else you could accidentally make a pretzel out of the driveshaft (especially when pulling a trailer). The clutch pedal also engages a "clutch brake" when you push it all the way to the floor, which slows down the input shaft when you're stopped and want to get it into gear without grinding. So if you were to double clutch, you'd only push the clutch down halfway instead of full travel. I didn't use the clutch except for starting from a complete stop. Didn't get to try reverse, unfortunately.

Would the clutch brake as you described it be similar to a "Jake brake"? Or are they different animals?

I've always been curious about trucking and intimidated at the prospect of driving one with the splitter and tons of gear ratios to deal with.

The clutch brake stops the clutch disc while it's disengaged so that you can get into Reverse or 1st with the vehicle stopped and engine running.

Don't forget, there are no synchros. When you step on the clutch pedal the clutch disc continues spinning from inertia after it has disengaged from the spinning flywheel. If the clutch is spinning and the gears are not, you're gonna have a bad time. So, you step on the clutch pedal, and after some travel the disc has disengaged, then you continue and by the time you get to the floor the clutch brake grabs the disc.

It is not similar in any way to a Jake brake and cannot conceivably be used to stop the vehicle.

Ya learn something new...

Thank you Señor Juicemaster.