156 How to shift an 18 speed transmission

[Music] well hello America hello world I thought I'd try to show you guys how to shift an 18 18 speed transmission do a little bit of explanation because a lot of people there's 18 gears and that how in the world can you keep track of everything it's really not as hard as you think it's kind of harder to master it I guess it's kind of like how much shooting pool it's easy to understand but it's hard to get good at that makes sense alright what we have is an 18-speed eaton fuller transmission okay it's the biggest transmission that they make now as far as number of gears 18 speed gears they then make an 18 speed they make a 15 speed and they make a 13 speed a 10 speed a 9 speed in I don't know down below about if that's the lowest of the nine though it was nine I think they used to make it eight to seven but not anymore so anyway we got we got we got 9 10 13 15 and 18 those are your your five main hop transmissions in trucks today most trucks out there most of your big company trucks your big big fleet trucks they they usually use a nine speed which is basically what this is it's a nine speed just doubled okay let me explain that you have your typical H pattern just like in a like a sports car let's say a Mustang okay and you've got your your five-speed transmission I know they make them bigger than that now like the Corvettes or what seven speeds but they just say a five-speed transmission you got reversed first second third fourth and fifth okay makes sense yeah but five years and then that's in the low range then give up on the front of the switch up here for a further gearshift there's a switch it's an up-and-down high load selector switch okay well in low gear you go through five gears and then you go to high here and you don't come back to first gear over here which would be sixth you don't go back over here cuz fifth gear in low and sixth gear in high are the same ratio okay so you skipped us with this first gear down on the bottom okay doctor no bottom left alright so you go one two three four five you flip the switch up and then go to six seven eight and nine makes sense nine nine years nine different ratios there's actually ten gates but there's nine different ratios okay what an 18-speed is is this little button on the side it splits every one of those in half so you have nine gears divided four multiplied by 2 is 18 speeds so this is the way and I won't move the ship stick because you won't bill winberries for lunch you're rolling but I'll just move my hand this isn't zero so there's neutral in the center okay here's this Center so we're going to go in this pattern right here okay so first year would be over and left with the switch down and the switch back okay down and back over here okay so watch my thumb which is this right here this little button here okay and then when I go to high range I go like this okay alright so we're going to be first second third fourth fifth sixth seventh eighth ninth oh I messed up somewhere start that over again first second third fourth fifth six seven eight nine ten there's ten gears and lower the lower range okay then I'll flip to the high side and instead of coming all the way back to this gate will go up to this date sore from one for ten 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 that's your 18 years if you want to understand that better just rewind it and watch it again 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 okay all right you don't go through all 18 years every time you go through the gear shed of gear patterns okay a lot of times especially with me but I'm hauling empty triggers I don't need to use all eighteen of those gears those gears are there for when you have really heavy loads and you're pulling mountains so I skip a lot of gears and on this transmission I basically drive up like a nine speed until I get over into ninth gear over here and then I flip the switch up into eighteenth okay so my gear pattern I got to think of this here first second third fourth fifth okay I would start out in fifth which be where our third gear might be okay I'd start out in fifth then go to seventh I wouldn't use the thumb switch I won't use the thumb switch until I get all the way up to ie high high gate up here so I'd start out in fifth seventh ninth 11th 13th 15th 17th and then I flip the switch up to 18 that's the way I normally Drive so I skipped a lot of gears I skipped off a little granny gear as a really low range granny gears and I've skipped every other year I have a split the gears wilt up with the thumb splitter okay I won from high to low range but I haven't used the thumbs letter until I get all over here and then flip up okay so I'm gonna try to do this and hopefully the camera will hold still it's just on a tripod sitting here so hopefully it will hold still as I go down the road here so let's give it the old college try low range and back okay we're gonna start out here's 1st and 2nd and the 3rd we're starting in the third gate which is fifth gear right now that's 5th gear I'm going to go up to 7th then that night okay then I'm gonna go to high speed or the high range 11 13th 15th 17th and while by that time I'm up to about 55 mile an hour I'll flip that and go into the 18th year the highest room here for guests so that's how we're gonna go we're in fifth gear right now I'm taking my foot off the clutch I'm not going to use the clutch anymore it's what they call floating speed shifting it's called floating gears not going to high range that's up to 11 because 13th at 15 30 boner 17th fifty-five now we're in 16th Kerala Gardens let up let off the pedal a little bit and it will automatically air shifter now underneath the air pressure actually puts it into that 18th year I haven't touched anything first true so as you noticed I didn't use the function what didn't stop I usually push to get going I didn't touch it out for that man I just floated here he is all the years messing up when you feel the gears mesh it up and you go back now go into that gear retention off of the gears pushing out of here and into the next year that's up in 16th right now there are 17 that came back prey here that's 17 that's all it is between we're splitting the gears at half inches right here and you're just letting off the bookie takes the pressure off for the ears and ones the air pressure underneath ship it for him okay so I'm 18 years I'm gonna hit a hill I grew up down to 17 all I need is push the switch that can't let off a little bit then loosens the gears up enough for the airship underneath it's like a narrow solenoid and it shifts it into the or half of the gear Oh I haven't touched the pledge at all Oh gives you the lil idea like I said you don't use all 18 years about half of a most the time what split airs or fours you can split each those beers and keep that tack the sweet spot as far as the torte I'm serving a lot of questions you

Channel: Sasnak

Views: 9,851,291

Rating: 4.8429985 out of 5

Keywords: #trucking vlog, #semi, #18 wheeler, #travel, #big bunk, #ARI sleeper, #life on the road, #bobtail, #sightseeing, #dash cam, #gopro 5, How to, shift, 18, speed, tranny, transmition, driving

Id: 8mBgrsS5rDU

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 13 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/chefdano3]

That's really cool. Now all we need us one of those mechanical cutaway gifs that show what it looks like inside the transmission as is being done.

[u/daniel6990]

Is this the same guy that stops his truck to jump out and make a snow angel?

[u/DominatingDrew]

Change gear, change gear, change gear...

[u/nukeyoo]

Grinding so many gears learning to drive a 5 speed manual at 16, 20 years ago, this feels like cheating.

Got maybe 45 minutes of teaching from my oldest brother on how to drive a stick-- next my parents are having me drive myself and my little brother 15 miles to school in the middle of winter.

Nothing like being thrown in the deep end.

[u/raybrignsx]

If you think that was cool, 3 stick shifting will blow your mind.

[u/CogitoNM]

I have always wondered about this. Thank you for posting.

[u/Robigo]

For some reason i found this to be very relaxing, tranquil almost.

[u/argelex]

I’m surprised how he didn’t touch the clutch, just at the beginning.

I know it’s posible, I tried on my car just in one gear very carefully to match the right rpm smooth as posible.

He just did it like nothing through all gears

[u/Stickak]

He makes this sound more complex than it really is. Big truck transmissions are essentially just two transmissions stacked on top of each other. The paddle in the front of the shifter moves you between low and high range gears.

A 9 speed Eaton is:

R(lo)   1   3      R(hi)    5   7
 | -  - | - |        | - -  | - |
Lo      2   4       Lo(hi)  6   8

That's 8 gears, plus a Low reduction gear to make 9 speeds. The Low(hi) gear is the same ratio as 5th gear, so it's skipped.

A 10 speed doesn't have a low reduction gear and shifts like this:

R(lo)   2   4      R(hi)   7   9
 | -  - | - |        | - - | - |
 1      3   5        6     8   10

That's just a normal 5 speed pattern, but stacked.

A 13 speed is the same as a 9 speed, but the high range gears have a splitter so you can better match engine RPM to road speed. An 18 speed is the same as a 9 speed or a 13 speed, but all the gears are split instead of just the high range.

15 speeds are the bastard child of the truck world. They are essentially a 10 speed, but the bottom side is split into a deep Lo-lo reduction instead of splitting the gear ratio. They mostly see use in trucks that are used off highway.

He also talks about skipping gears, but does a shitty job explaining it. Driving an empty truck, you skip lots of gears because you don't have a load weighing you down. If I'm driving a 13/18 speed, I usually start out in 2nd gear and get rolling, let the engine speed drop 600rpm, skip over to 4th gear, flip the paddle up to get into high range, let engine speed drop 300 RPM, shift to 5th, let engine speed drop 600 rpm, skip to 7th, let engine speed drop 300 rpm, shift to 8th, let engine speed drop 150rpm and hit the hi range splitter. That's 4 shifts and the one split gear to get to the top gear. There's no need to hit every split, or even every gear when you are driving. You just need to keep the engine in it's power band, which is why big trucks have so many gears, those big diesel engines operate best between 1200-1600RPM which is a pretty narrow range.

Source: Heavy equipment mechanic and I rebuild those engines and transmissions for a living.