MIDNIGHT RIDER
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I have driven many of the various auxilliaries in big trucks, both two-poles and three-poles.
It sounds real to talk about hooking one's arm through the steering-wheel and using both hands to shift.
In reality, those auxilliary gears are shifted only when needed and seldom ever touched at highway speeds.
When you are backing up a bad hill, you would put the auxilliary in double-under.
Pulling forward up that same bad hill, you would probably use regular under.
Once on the road, the auxilliary gets left in DIRECT; until, when up to speed on a really good road, once normally shifted into high gear for the transmission, then the auxilliary might get shifted to over-drive.
I have driven several old three-pole MACKs and I have yet to use more than one pole at a time.
It sounds real to talk about hooking one's arm through the steering-wheel and using both hands to shift.
In reality, those auxilliary gears are shifted only when needed and seldom ever touched at highway speeds.
When you are backing up a bad hill, you would put the auxilliary in double-under.
Pulling forward up that same bad hill, you would probably use regular under.
Once on the road, the auxilliary gets left in DIRECT; until, when up to speed on a really good road, once normally shifted into high gear for the transmission, then the auxilliary might get shifted to over-drive.
I have driven several old three-pole MACKs and I have yet to use more than one pole at a time.