Prepare to be mesmerized watching a man use both hands to shift two sticks through nine gears—while double-clutching— in an old Mack Truck. This guy is a boss.
I’ve got a new appreciation for truckers after watching this video of a guy rowing through the endless gears of his Mack B61 truck. First he uses one hand on each stick, then he uses one hand on both sticks, then he uses one hand on each stick! There’s too many sticks!!!!!!!!!
I can’t seem to find the shift pattern for this transmission anywhere. My initial thought was that each stick would control three gears, and that’s how it appears in the video.
But then I came across this instructional video on how to operate an Eaton-Fuller nine-speed, and I’m starting to wonder if maybe one shifter controls five forward gears, and the other has a high and low range (but the low gear on the five-speed is only used in low). It’s hard to tell from the video.
What I do know is that this isn’t even the most complicated manual gearbox on these old trucks. Here’s a guy rowing through his B61 Mack’s 15-speed transmission:
Gosh I’m jealous. Few things in life are as soothing as rowing through gears of a manual gearbox.
h/t: Dylan Dale from OppositeTalk