I read where you stated stopping but you mentioned nothing concerning truck initial movement. WOW 1 million miles on a clutch is some kind of a record! Did you receive a gold watch for that feat?
A million miles on a clutch is not as big a deal as you would think, but most companies or owner ops never give a clutch a chance to last that long. When service is done to the tranny, if it needs pulling, a new clutch always goes back in, never the old one. Why take a chance on a well used pressure plate if you are already in there, change it!
As far as driving a million miles, most over the road drivers (OTR) achieve that about every 10 years.
I keep a rolling tally of the miles I drive with how many miles the truck has on it when I start and end driving it. I am just shy of 4.5 million miles of miles that I can account for. Paper logs back in the day were not useful for keeping up with miles, paychecks also don't account for them, because we don't get paid for every mile. For example, for 3 years I ran a dedicated run, six to seven days a week, drove 940 a day, got paid for 900 a day and was only able to log 4 days in an 8 day log period.
Another driver delivered to a store just down the street from where I delivered, both trucks were new and put on this account at the same time, so both had the tranny's dropped at 750 mile service interval. Both of us were waiting on our trucks, and the service manager called both of us into the shop to show us our tranny's and ask us about our driving habits. Turns out the other driver almost always laid his hand on the gearshift knob, while mine stayed on the steering wheel (and coffee cup). The internal wear of his shift forks was enough that it required new forks, etc.
I have no issues about shifting in one range, but always stop to shift between hi and lo range. 5030 says to float the gears, while for most people double clutching is probably the best way. HOWEVER, shifting it like a CAR is not the way to shift a tractor! Floating if you are competent, or learn to double clutch. I think double clutching is easy, but I taught new students off the street to do that in semi's for several years.
David from jax
David from jax
