Hello all, first-time Dodge owner here. Bought a sweet w150 with the /6 yesterday. It's a bit of a project, which i'll go into details about when i get time. In the meanwhile i have a quick question: the truck has the granny low first gear (meaning np435 trans?) but doesnt like starting in 2nd. It shudders like hell if i start in second and only gets going if i start in the granny gear. Why would this be? I think someone may have messed with the gear ratios, but they're still super low. Any ideas? Thanks.
87 w150 4spd issues
- Thread starter mryuck
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crazzywolfie
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sounds pretty normal to me. my dads ford is the same way. 1st gear is almost too low to do any driving in and you are almost immediately shifting but if you don't use 1st gear you have to let the clutch slip quite a bit to get moving without having the vehicle shutter like you described. i am pretty sure that is the way almost all standard transmission are usually setup especially in trucks. they need that low first gear to make taking off easy especially when taking off with a big load and a gutless engine.
mryuck
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That makes sense. Intuitively thats what i expect from my background of driving car 5-spds. But the manual says i should only be taking off in granny low under heavy loads or on hills, etc. just curious... i have no problems using first for take-off, i just dont want to do it if it's gonna be hard on the trans.
crazzywolfie
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ya cars are geared completely different. it takes a lot less effort to start moving a car. i think the manual also might be generally written. i think there is 2 different versions of the np435 and 1 of them has a super low 1st and a reasonably low second which you could likely take off in but then there is the other version that doesn't have the super low first. i don't think you could ever hurt anything from using first gear. i only see you possibly hurting something if you don't use it.
