# 52 - Jeff
Have you ever had the pleasure ( or in most cases displeasure) of driving a 5 and 4? -Jeff
No, I have never had the pleasure of driving a two-stick transmission. I have had them explained to me, and I would love to attempt it. That would be another classic twist to the trucking industry that I would be thrilled to have achieved, but those transmissions are few and far between these days.
I am actually very grateful just to be able to have my 10 speed Eaton Fuller. A lot of companies are going with an automatic transmission for their fleets. My company had considered doing this as well. I had the displeasure of using one of the auto-shifters a few years ago and found it to be a royal nightmare. I only had to use it one week, but that was all it took to convince me I didn't like it. I have some very difficult backing maneuvers in Brooklyn, and the truck would not cooperate. It took me 20 minutes to back into an alley, because the truck wanted me to maintain at least 10mph or it would revert to neutral. Try dodging cars parked on both sides of an alley, from the blind-side, over a set of railroad tracks that were rutted out (causing major bouncing) into a tiny lot with an extended dock onto which you had to parallel park where there was razor wire overhead threatening to cut into the tarp if you got too close ( all while backing) at 10 plus mile per hour in REVERSE....
No Thanks, I will stick with my manual shift.
As an aside, I also think it is wrong for the trucking industry to make these vehicles so easy to drive. There are fewer skilled drivers on the roads these days, and I partially blame the industry for making it all too easy. Lets bring back the Twin Stick !!
4 comments:
LT: You know I would love to run some miles with you, @Onegirltrucking . . . That would be so awesome . . . Its the small things in life that excite me these days . . . Think we should get us an ALL Girls convoy an roll some miles down the road!! Thank you so much for the words of encouragement that you left me via DM! @blczz999
So give me a quick run down. What was the two stick transmission all about? How do the drivers shift through the gears, as opposed to your 10 speed truck?
I remember seeing them when I was a kid and Darin Piscatelli's dad would let us climb up in his truck and I just assumed that was the way rigs were still equipped.
One time I seen a old 1970s Ford LTL9000 with a twin stick. The problem was the truck was getting out of delivery areas at a speed of 10mph, sometimes 12. One driver deliberately switch the gears at a fast pace while hauling a heavy load that he snapped the drive train in half like a toothpick. This stunt (although never proven he did it on purpose) got the truck into the shop and they changed the transmission to a Eaton-Fuller 13-speed, the same with another 1980s GMC Brigadeer ('cause it had an old automatic).
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