Here's the deal, i had an 83 4x4. but it was stolen.now, I have the chance to buy a very clean 86 4x4. blown motor. but the head was rebuilt. Along with a bunch of other new stuff for the top end. I figured i could just use the short block from my 83. (it only has 130,000 on it). that aint a big deal. My problem is the 86 is an auto. I hear all the time that the autos are junk. But I figure that if i use a tranny cooler. it would help out a bunch. I'd like to use the auto so the wife could wheel the truck. But if it's a P.O.S. then i won't even bother. I'll swap in a 5 speed. My question is what goes wrong with the automatic trannys? Why are they so crappy?

 

So far nothing has gone wrong with mine, 105,000 miles. I like the auto for wheeling too. The only draw back off-road is there is less engine braking going down steep hills, but it helps if you manually shift into 1st (L). I never off-road with it in drive (D). The main draw backs on-road are 4 gears instead of 5, and the OD gear is too high. The OD gear so high that if you had the power under the hood to pull the gear, I bet it would go like 120mph way before you hit the red line.

 

Auto's aren't that bad for wheeling.

People don't like them because:
1. they can overheat in slow rockcrawling
2. the fluid needs to be full or the tranny won't work at all
3. people like to have control of the gears
4. they have very little compression braking from the engine.

A lot of people like autos because:
1. They're smoother for climbing obstacles
2. you just leave it in drive and it figures out the best gear
3. You can almost (but not quite) fake having crawler gears (when climbing) by using both feet.

The roughness of the manual tranny can be cured by going with a dual tcase. The overheating of the auto tranny can be cured by adding a tranny cooler.

Some people are switching to autos for competition crawlers now. I think for beginners and for people who don't want to shell out the money for a dual tcase, the auto is fine.

 

Mine has never overheated, but maybe that's because I don't wheel it in drive (D). I just mainly stay in 1st gear and sometimes manually shift into 2nd. The more shifting the auto tranny does the more it overheats, or so I was told.

 

Mine would be going about 160mph before I hit redline with OD on.
At 80mph it is only turning 2500 RPM. I often wish I had the 5-speed
but not when I'm driving in Atlanta traffic.

 

The light has only come on while on the freeway under extreme conditions. Ok, one time I was going about 10-20mph over deep gravel while in 4hi and the light came on.

For crawling, it always chooses the lowest gear and for going down obstacles I shift to 1st.

 

the truck will pretty much be trail only. So highway driving isn't a concern to me. Another question I have is, Are the T-cases the same. As in auto vs. manual. I have a few extra cases around. so going duals would be easy. Sure would be nice to get the wife into wheeling. That way she won't get as mad at me for spending money on toys...

 

No the t-cases are not the same, but don't sweat it because wheeling with an auto you won't need a crawler. You can go as slow as you want and even stop right in the middle of a steep hill, its great. It is also very smooth power so very little drive line damage is done. CVs, gears, axles, will be less likely to fail off-road because of the smooth starts.

Yes you must get the wife involed too. Mine loves to wheel and can't wait to go again. She still gets mad at my continued modifing though.

 

Hmm...I guess it depends on what's more important, getting the wife into wheeling or having a hardcore rock crawler.

I wouldn't say that an auto completely negates the need for dual tcases. I'd still say a manual tranny and dual tcases are superior to a stock auto and stock single case. The dual tcases still give better uphill and downhilll control.

But I sure like my auto though.

 

I'll prob. run the auto for a little while. There's too many other things to do before I get to swapping trannies. I've got a SAS to do. Then somesort of flatbed to build. etc. I figure it'll work fine for the type of wheeling I do. But, then again, dual cases would make things a lot funner. I could teach the wife to drive a 5 speed.

 

Here's a good thread that I bookmarked:

https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f16/extending-automatic-transmission-life-27318/

 

Thanks for the link. That answered a few questions i had.