So lets say im at a stop light on an incline. What should i do. And if your coasting to a red light, can you just pop in into neutral or use the clutch for that?
Your asking about using the *friction point* of the clutch to hold you in position at a stop light on an uphill, right? Nitro71 says no. He's right in a sense. The die hards wont' ever do it. It's generally considered to be a no-no, bad policy, etc.
Then you have the *you can do it but that doesn't mean you should* thinking.
You can use the clutch to hold yourself in position at a stop light. But keep in mind when your using the friction point pressrue to hold yourself in place you're wearing the clutch. The more and longer you do it the faster you wear the clutch. That doesn't mean it's going to wear out in 3 months.
There's also waer in the throwout bearing anytime you've got pressure on the clutch pedal. i.e. don't ride the clutch pedal once it's engaged.
Me? I use the clutch to hill hold all the time. But if it's a long light I qiut go to neutral and hold the brake pedal.
The bigger the load behind the clutch the less you wanna be slipping the clutch. If you have 8KLbs on a tralier behind your expy you;ll certainly not want to do much hill holding with the clutch. Try pull starting a semi and you're likely gonna be smelling a burning clutch. But the clutch will still work unless you've burnt it all the way on that one time.
there's the long answer.
Basically it shouldn't be any different than a car. If you have good & proper technique it's good technique.
Whether you downshift into a lower gear for engine braking is a personal choice. But it really doesn't make any diff unless you're into the higher RPM the motor is the worse your gas mileage will be. Shut the motor off and coast to a stop if you want, but you won't have PSteering or vacumn for your vac booster past the first brake pedal push. Not recomended, just saying.
you also ask this question:"(2) Do you have to use the clutch to downshift from any gear to neutral when you come to a stop?"
That's kind of a hard question to understand. It's possible to completley downshift into a lower gear without using the clutch if you know what your doing. But why would you want to? Use it. If your asking if it's possible to just bump the gearshift into neutral without using the clutch, yes it is, if there's no pressure on the drive train. But again why would you want to?
It's pssible to up and down shift a tranny without using the clutch. it's done in semi's all the time. But they are *made that way* with clutch brakes and other goodies. It can be done in a smaller car but by the time you get it down you'd likely have done lots of damage. So what would be the point?
yeah, there's the really long answer.
