Hitting a fork in the road.. The transmission road..

[RedRoad]

Ive always voted for manual on a working truck. All of mine in the past have been 420s or 465s with the exception of my current burb which was stock with a th350. I left it stock so the wife would not be scared driving it if needed and the fact it is a survivor but since the trans went out I am swapping in a 465. I love the granny low for the off road we do and I would have been hating life if the auto went out in the middle of no where with the wife and kid on board. Ive killed first gear in a 465 once behind a big block hopping over some boulders 100 miles from the nearest town and was able to drive home and STILL put 20K miles on it once I fished out the broken teeth months later.

Ive thought about NV4500 but the few people I know who actually have done the swap seemed to feel it wasnt worth the money. Expensive gear lube, expensive adapters or weak t case options, noisy rebuilds etc.

Back in the day a buddy had a CR 5 speed out of a GMC and a brownie box with overdrive and that thing was a BEAST. It would haul anything and the brownie helped pull a few more mpg out of the big block. He was into it around $2K but in the mid 80s that was a ton of cash.

My vote is to dump the auto and start rowin'!!!