You suggested that a guy shift without using his clutch the other day and I just had to try it. I was surprised at how easy it is to do if you just 'feel' what the motor is doing with your butt and listen to the revs. Hopefully this will save my new clutch kit.
Take care, Gary
Well a clutch is cheep compared to the other damage that can come from not "floating" properly...
CLUNK! CLUNK! AH! YOU STUPID TRANSMISSION...FLOAT! AAAARH! GRRRRRRRRRRR CLOINK PING...CHUKA CHUKA...
POW!
OH S*^%$T SHOULD HAVE USED THE CLUTCH!
HOHO..HIHI...
Serge
During my 2 years as a trucker, I tried that 'floating-the-gears'. I found it is much easier when the 53' trailer was empty. I got pretty good going through 2-10th gear and almost made back down to 2nd. Alot harder downshifting, but I was getting the hang of it.
Uh oh, not a dispatcher! You my friend have taken a job that puts you in the sights of most truckers out there. Both of my dispatchers (Schneider and KLLM) had ZERO experience behind the wheel of those 'large cars'. Let's just say I had to tell them what to kiss when it came to what I drove and what their computer said I drove.
Not to brag but I floated half my shifts in my CDL road test. With maybe
10 total miles of actual semi driving (good instructor, always prefaced every float with "they probably don't want me teaching you this but...") The trick to down shift floating was always meeting the shifter at the gate JUST as you elevated the RPM's to the right amount. Needless to say this varied so much because you're often going up different hills (road speed decreasing, while raising the RMP's makes the "window" where it will float into gear smaller)When I was OTR, I'd get into my car after a month on the road and drive all the way home without touching the clutch (except from a stop of course). I can't do it in a car nearly as well as those days. The smaller flywheel/clutch makes that sweet spot where the shifter just falls into gear harder to hit without a nasty grind.
I've always been pretty dubious about the performance aplication of floating or "power shifting" as some people call it. Getting the shift timed with the RPM's just right seems to take longer than just letting the syncro's do their job. Of course if you're just mashing it in there it might be faster. IMO floating is more of a finesse/skill move. When you show someone floating and you slide it into gear with your left foot on the floor, without making a noise, it can be pretty impressive.
It's also impressive to some people that I can shift my Cobra with my right knee (for the 1 and 3 gates) and foot (for the 2 and 4 gates) using the clutch with my other foot... but I don't like to do it all the time. ;-)
I've floated shifts before much to the amazement of my friends, but typically I'm not patient enough to get the floats down so I usually end up pushing at the wrong time and weight on the synchros pretty hard. Obviously I don't push too hard, I'm just giving it enough of a shove to let it drop in when it's ready.
My old SROD I would actually engine-match and shift clutchless. I had a friend tell me that it couldn't be done.
Once in DC beltway traffic, I got tired of using a heavy clutch, so when we did finally get rolling, I was going from 2nd to 5th back to 2nd (through the gears) without clutching for quite some time. It does come in handy.
JS
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