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Eaton Fuller 18-speed

18 speedManual1970s to present

Deep reduction plus splitters on both ranges. Built for heavy haul, oversize and anything that has to creep. Overkill for a dry van and beloved by the people who need it.

Torque rating

1750-2250

pound-feet at the input

Weight

800 lb

160 lb over the lightest, which is payload

Shifting

By hand

the driver decides the gear

Maker

Eaton

What it does to fuel

Directionally best of the manuals for a skilled driver on varied terrain, because there is always a gear near the sweet spot.

What this type is

A driver, a clutch and a stick. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to fix, lighter, and increasingly hard to sell: the used market for manuals has thinned as fleets standardised on automated boxes and as fewer drivers can shift one.

Known issues

Weight, complexity, and a shift pattern that separates drivers who know it from drivers who claim to.

Verdict

The right gearbox for heavy and oversize work. On flat linehaul it is 80 pounds of payload and a lot of shifting you will not use.