Hey guys,

I drive a 2000 Excursion, so thats where I'm usually lurking, but I have a couple of questions about manual transmissions in trucks, and since the Excursion was never offered with a manual option [WHAT?? I know ] I figured this would be the place to ask. Not technical, just basic knowledge questions.

•Is cruise control available for manual transmissions? If it is, it would seem dangerous, because the car might bogg down to the point of stalling on a steep hill where an auto-trans would kick down. Does this ever happen, or does the cruise have some sort of special system to keep this kind of thing from happening? I was just kind of curious.

•My other question is do the manual superduties have foot operated emergency brakes? The only manual-trans cars I have ever been in had hand brakes. In the limited manual-trans driving i have done, I used the emergency hand-brake to keep from rolling back when starting from a stop on really steep hills. (I had one foot on the clutch and one on the gas (and the car was rolling back faster than I could get the clutch to mesh)). Is there another trick to starting from a stop on a really steep uphill, or do you just need to be faster between letting off the brake and getting on the acellerator?

I know that I have very little experience in driving a manual trans, (no one in my immediate family has one) but these questions were really bothering me. So thanks to anyone who read through all that !

Sincerely,
Isaac

 

Yes, you can get cruise control with manual transmissions. I suppose it is possible to bog one out, but in that case all you would do is downshift the transmission yourself. I've never seen anyone wait long enough to have it bog down to stall point. Of course, that will lead to what happens if the cruise control is on and you push in the clutch. To make a long story short, there is a switch on the clutch pedal just like your brake pedal, and pushing down on either one will cancel the cruise control.

The emergency brake is a foot pedal just like the automatics. It's not a problem once you get used to it. I was always strongly discouraged from using the old handbrake trick, so I learned to do it all by grab point and sound.

 

Cowboy Brett,

Wow, thank you! that was exactly the information that I was looking for

Isaac

 

Actually, if the cruise control is on and you start loosing too much speed uphill the cruise control automatically turns itself off to prevent bogging down the motor

 

As far as cruise control goes I hardley ever use it. But as I recall if you go 10mph lower than the set speed it automaticaly cancels out cruise. For the steep hill thing it isn't much of a problem at all. You just let the clutch out till it starts to grab, let off the brake and add some throttle. And if its really steep use granny low gear. I have done this on the steepest hills in San Francisco and have never killed the motor. Who says the 6.0 has no low end? She pulls the hills like nothing.