Gear Positions
Neutral
Neutral (N) is in the center of the three-position selector switch located at the end of the SmartShift control lever. To select neutral, press in the safety release and move the selector switch to the center position.
Neutral is always available during operation. When in neutral, requests to upshift or downshift are ignored. If the selector switch is moved from neutral to drive while the vehicle is moving, the transmission will shift into a gear within the engine's operating torque range.
Reverse
To select reverse (R), press in the safety release and move the selector switch upward to the position above neutral.
Note: When the selector switch is in reverse (R), all shifts are done manually, regardless of the position of the slide switch.
The vehicle must come to a complete stop before selecting reverse. If reverse is selected with the vehicle moving, an audible warning will sound. Once the vehicle has come to a complete stop, reverse low can be engaged.
There are two reverse gears. Reverse low (RL) is the default reverse gear. To select reverse high (RH), pull the control lever up (towards you). You can shift between RL and RH "on the fly," without stopping first.
Upshifting
Note: A request to upshift or downshift can only be accepted in the manual mode.
With the transmission in drive, to request an upshift, pull the control lever up (towards you). If the gear is available, the transmission will upshift.
An unavailable request to upshift is not stored in memory. The upshift must be requested again. Skip shifting in manual mode is not available with the ZF Meritor version of SmartShift.
Downshifting
Note: A request to upshift or downshift can only be accepted in the manual mode.
With the transmission in drive, to request a downshift, push the control lever down (away from you). If the gear is available, the transmission will downshift.
An unavailable request to downshift is not stored in memory. The downshift must be requested again. Skip shifting in manual mode is not available with the ZF Meritor version of SmartShift.
Important: A downshift request can never result in a shift into neutral, even if the vehicle is in the drive position in the lowest possible gear.
Selecting a Non-Default Starting Gear
Note: For the clutch to engage, pressure in the primary air system must be at least 100 psi (689 kPa).
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Select drive (D) by pressing in the safety release and moving the selector switch downward to the position below neutral.
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Select manual mode (MAN) by moving the two-position slide switch towards the steering column until it is in the manual position.
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To increase the starting gear, pull the lever up (towards you). To decrease the starting gear, push the lever down (away from you).
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Select automatic mode (AUTO), if desired, by moving the two-position slide switch away from the steering column until it is in the automatic position.
Driver Message Center
On the Century Class S/T, the gear is displayed on the driver display screen in the SmartDash™ (ICU2M) message center. See Fig..
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Driver Display Screen
Fig. 1, SmartDash Display
The first character of the display is either blank, to indicate the transmission is in manual mode, or an up-and-down arrow to indicate the transmission is in automatic mode.
Note: Pre-production vehicles will have a small numeric "10" in place of the up-and-down arrow when in automatic mode.
The next two characters indicate the current gear. For forward drive gears, this appears as a two-digit number ( Examples : "03, "11"). For reverse, two letters appear, either "RL" for low reverse (the default), or "RH" for high reverse. For neutral, a single letter "N" appears.