[Bob86ZZ4]

Back to Truck Conversions. When I was shopping for a truck my son was an owner/operator. He had driven for a couple companies before buying his own truck. He tried to get me to not consider auto shifters. He said any real truck driver rows his own gears. I developed a bit of a relationship with the service manager at the local Kenworth shop and picked his brain on this issue. He said he couldn't remember ever taking apart an auto shifting trans. He said they just don't have any issues with inside the case because drivers can't mess them up. He said they have an occasional issue with the wiring connections on the outside of the box. And the solenoid can wear out and/or fail. But he said these issues never required removing the trans. He said the fleet owners seem to prefer the auto shifters because their drivers can't mess up the trans. Now that I've owned my truck about 8 years and 65k miles I really like the auto shift. It's just so much easier to not have to deal with rowing the gears. I'm 29k lbs. without the trailer. I think if I was rowing I would be able to skip some gears. So that's a bit slower with the auto since it will not skip gears. Oh well. Mine is a 3 pedal so I have to use the clutch pedal to get it rolling and then don't touch it again until almost at a stop. I've never driven a 2 pedal. I know a guy that had a Freedom Line auto shift trans in his International. He had an issue and the shop did a very poor job trying to figure it out. It ended up costing him a ton because of the misdiagnose and wrong work. In the end I don't think the issue was that expensive and it did get fixed and he drove it for some time after that before selling the truck. I've heard they aren't selling the Freedom Line trans in the US anymore so it might be harder to find qualified techs for them?

I was in Michigan this past summer and struck up a conversation with a truck driver there. Michigan allows much higher weight trucks than the rest of the country. He told me his last truck had a C12 Caterpillar and a straight 10 manual trans (same as my trans but not an auto shifter). He said he was always 150k lbs. all day everyday. He said it handled the load no problem. Now, there are no mountains in Michigan so maybe it might be a bit harder at 150k in the mountains. But that makes me appreciate the power these rigs have. I've heard that the diesel pusher engines that they claim are 350 or 400 h/p really don't put out that much after they attach all the accessories and especially the hydraulic cooling fans. Kind of like how they used to measure h/p years ago on muscle cars. Putting the engine and radiator up front seems to have positive effects on the actual power we're able to use.