Ive got a 05 plate Merc on hire for next week, i have driven them before, but could someone just refresh me on the gear box.
Its a T piece, with a button at either end, and a paddle thing in front of it that goes up and down.
If i remember rightly, its push the button on the right, then the stick forward, and it will select gear, then move off?, is the paddle to select a half gear up or down manually?
And press both buttons at either end of the stick to get neutral, has the button on the left got any other use?
Push the left button to select neutral, push and hold the right button and pull the lever back to select reverse.
If i remember, holding the right button whilst changing gear will only select the next gear eg: 1L 1H 2L 2H 3L 3H etc…
If you leave the button and just push the lever it will jump to the most suitable eg 2H 3H 5H etc…
The paddle is the splitter.
Hope this helps
the actros i drove had one button on the right and the paddle at the front of it
the paddle is for the half gears just push it either up or down To change a full gear up or down push the whole thing either forwards or backwards For reverse hold the right button in and push the stick backwards i usually reversed in the low range cos the thing usually shot backwards in high
And push the button on the right for neutral
hope this helps the one i drove was on a 52 plate so maybe it might be abit outdated
There are two different gear boxes available. One of which is Semi-Automatic (notice the clutch pedal) and one of which is full automatic but allows driver’s interference. Are they complicated? No, they are not and here is how they work:
Semi-Automatic:
Press Clutch Pedal, press right button on gear leaver (T-bar) and push gear leaver forward to select drive gear. The paddle in front of the T-bar is nothing else than a High/Low selector (up-position being high-gear and down-position being low-gear). The catch with this box is that you may select a gear up to 30 seconds in advance and that you have to press the clutch pedal as you go through the gears. To go back into neutral simply press the left button while pressing down the clutch. To go into reverse gear press down clutch, press right button and pull T-bar backwards. That’s all there is to do.
Full automatic:
There is no clutch pedal but the procedure of gear selection is the same. The paddel in front selcts High/Low Gear. Right button has to be pressed when gear is in neutral and a driving gear needs to be selected. So, only press this button when selecting the 1st or 2nd gear to move off. After that no further gears need to be selected since the gearbox is taking care of this. You have control over the gearbox by playing about with your accelerator (fully depressed - long gear changes and half depressed - low/quick gear changes). To select reverse gear press the left button on T-bar first to go into neutral and than press the right button and pull handle backwards.
Right hand button and push the lever forwards it will select 2H to pull away.
Right hand button and push the lever backwards it will select R to go backwards.
Once moving:-
Right hand button and push lever forwards - up a whole gear eg 2H - 3H or 3L - 4L
Right hand button and push lever backwards - down a whole gear eg 3H - 2H or 4L - 3L
Pull paddle up - !/2 gear up
Push paddle down 1/2 gear down
Push lever forwards and Actros selects the most (in)appropriate higher gear (in its opinion)
Push lever backwards and Actros selects the most (in)appropriate lower gear (in its opinion)
It does seem to have some sort of learning capacity for which gears you want in certain circumstances, but that may just be me becoming more tolerant.
It is worth noting that there is time to make and drink a cuppa whilst waiting for the gear to change, and if you let the clutch up before it is ready it will pretend to shoot you with a noise like an AK47. Sometimes it will then select neutral or a really too high or low gear just for the hell of it. Always listen for the electronic “clonk” when it changes. Don’t confuse this with the indicators which sound similar. When you want 2H in a hurry when the lights suddenly go green it will refuse and beep at you. Keep trying - you’ll win in the end.
Otherwise its a wonderful box
My Actros is in for repairs and I had a Daf XF95 with auto box. Now that was nice …
nightpilot:
The catch with this box is that you may select a gear up to 30 seconds in advance and that you have to press the clutch pedal as you go through the gears.
Very easy indeed.
You can, but it will decide it’s had enough of waiting 1 millisecond before you dip the clutch
gardun:
Left hand button for neutral and nothing else.
Right hand button and push the lever forwards it will select 2H to pull away.
Right hand button and push the lever backwards it will select R to go backwards.
Once moving:-
Right hand button and push lever forwards - up a whole gear eg 2H - 3H or 3L - 4L
Right hand button and push lever backwards - down a whole gear eg 3H - 2H or 4L - 3L
Pull paddle up - !/2 gear up
Push paddle down 1/2 gear down
Push lever forwards and Actros selects the most (in)appropriate higher gear (in its opinion)
Push lever backwards and Actros selects the most (in)appropriate lower gear (in its opinion)
It does seem to have some sort of learning capacity for which gears you want in certain circumstances, but that may just be me becoming more tolerant.
In addition to pretty much a full summary, once you’ve depressed the clutch, wait for the dash speaker to give a double click noise before releasing it.
Conor:
In addition to pretty much a full summary, once you’ve depressed the clutch, wait for the dash speaker to give a double click noise before releasing it.
This is something that annoys me about the newer Actroses.
The older ones (I drove them on 51 and 52 plates) the click was a mechanical thing in the gear lever. This means you can hear/feel it at any speed and with the stereo at any volume.
The newer ones (specifically the one I drove was an 05) it was an electronic click from a speaker. If you have the stereo turned up you can’t hear it.
gardun:
Push lever forwards and Actros selects the most (in)appropriate higher gear (in its opinion)
Push lever backwards and Actros selects the most (in)appropriate lower gear (in its opinion)
And if the exhaust brake if on, it will only go up 1/2 a gear at a time , and change down as many gears as is possible
You’ve got to be pretty laid back with it, as left to its own devices it can make some whopping great block changes which seem a bit ambitious, especially when fully loaded.
If its a fully auto, theres a kickdown switch under the accelerator, but you really do need to stand on the pedal to make it work, but the changes becomes faster with a higher rpm change up point and not so many gears in the block changes.
Quite right Big Joe - except that if you remember the exhaust brake is on and click twice for a whole gear it will forget and go up two whole gears if the hill is steep enough to stop you
It’s got a mind of its own, and its sole purpose in life is to make life difficult
It does seem to have some sort of learning capacity for which gears you want in certain circumstances, but that may just be me becoming more tolerant.
I think it does too, it seems to learn if it’s selected too higher gear to pull away in and remembers for next time. When it does this you just hit the right button and choose the gear you want, so long as you dont rely on it and help it out it works quite well.
I found when you first pull away (at the start of the journey) do it manualy, then the box will learn from you. If you try it in semi auto it’ll go through near every gear.
One thing i dont think anyone mentioned is that you can go up more than 1 gear at a time. Hold the right button in, rock the stick forward, the display will show the next gear, (dont press the clutch yet) hold the button in and rock the stick forward again it’ll show the next gear, only press the clutch when you’ve chosen the gear you want and it’ll change up to the one you’ve chosen. ie. no need to pump the clutch everytime you move the stick, you can preselect several gears, not just the next one in the sequence. Difficult to expain that without having a truck to show it on!
Also remember it’s just a sequential gearbox and isnt 4 over 4 with half gears. it’s just a 16 speed box in the sequence 1low, 1hi, 2low, 2hi, 3lo, 3hi etc (rather than 1lo, 2lo,…) Would have made much more sense to number them from 1 to 16. The small paddle then just chooses between odd and even numbers.
The older ones (I drove them on 51 and 52 plates) the click was a mechanical thing in the gear lever. This means you can hear/feel it at any speed and with the stereo at any volume.
Pretty loud on our 55 plate, the stereo would have to be deafening to drown it out. Maybe yours was faulty?
