Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Transmission Swap

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Transmission Swap: 2012 HD trucks are tough, but their transmissions don't last very long. The factory tranny went for 200,000 miles and this one only last...

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Trany Repair

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Trany Repair: Late model, Chevrolet 6-speed transmissions are notorious for loosing their shifting linkage. This is about the third time I have dealt with...

Real transmissions.

About once a year I go on an unhinged campaign for the restoration of manual transmissions.  I absolutely know, right from the onset, that it's totally pointless.  Nonetheless, the fact that no manual transmission pickup trucks are made in the US, outside of the Jeep pickups, really angers me.

100% of the reasons stated in support of automatic transmissions are pure unadulterated bullshit.  The real, and only, reason they're put in pickup trucks is that most pickup trucks are driven in cities, including ones that have fanciful outdoorsy names and have something like "off road edition" emblazoned on their sides.  If it's got an automatic transmission, it's the kawaii thirteen year old girl edition.  That's it.  It's made for wimps who want to pretend their outdoorsy and don't know how to drive.

The market, of course, is what controls this, and ever since the day guys who never get outside the Denver city limits started dominating the market, this is what we've ended up with.

Now, in defense of engineering, automatic transmissions in trucks have gotten much better than they used to be.  Indeed, ever since General Motors began to put Alison transmissions in their diesels, they've been pretty good. None of that changes the fact that all of the disadvantages associated with automatic transmissions fully remain.  You are actually using the engine to drive the transmission, which is inherently inefficient, and you are letting hydraulic pressure determine when to shift gears, which is mindless.  It can also be dangerous.  All of the features that engineers built in to allow automatic transmissions not to be mindless killers are ignored by everyone who drives one.

And the fact that they have a lot of extra parts means they're going to wear out more quickly.  I have had in the various vehicles I own two transmissions wear out. . . both of them were automatics. 

And, yes, I've owned vehicles with automatic transmissions.

So, anyway, it always goes the same way.  I get angry about it, and usually when it dawns on me that I can never, ever, buy a new vehicle now as they all have automatic transmissions.  I end up emailing the Dodge dealer asking for a cab and chassis with no transmission, as I can take care of the transmission part.

"Um. . . . we can't do that".

Oh bullshit, you certainly can.

Occasionally I called Dodge, which I did this week.  I ended up with some poor (probably Filipino, based on the accent) woman who tried to help.

"I want a cab and chassis with no transmission, or I want you to put in a G56 transmission and I know that you have some around there".

"Um. . . . just a moment sir. . . . I tried to ask somebody but nobody knows the answer to this. .  I'm sorry".

The current diesel engine in Dodge's is the the B6.7.  I really wonder if there's any new made manual that will mate up to it, although the costs of doing so would likely be insane. I wonder the same about the somewhat bigger Cummis engines, up to the the L9 and B7.2.  I'd think there's have to be one for hte 7.2.

Ram HD 2025 MANUAL Trans? Here's how it could happen...

About once a year I have a fit because Chrysler and Ford quit offering a manual transmission option.  I become unrealistic about it.

I know that neither one is going to restore manuals.  Frankly, trucks are meant now to be driving in cities, not on farms and ranches, and therefore they're designed for city drivers.  Basically, if a 13 year old girly girl can't drive it, they aren't going to make it.

And I also know the "but modern manual transmissions. . . " argument.

This video really addresses that.

M923 5-ton 6x6 truck, wildlands fire truck conversion.

The M923 was the last in the line of a series of 5 ton US military 6x6 trucks.  A 6x6 remains in service, but it's a cab over.  

Featuring a Cummins diesel engine, a 5 speed automatic transmission and single, rather than dual, wheels the truck was, and indeed is, quite modern.  Built by AM General, with production commencing in 1982, over 44,000 of them were produced, and they remain in service around the globe.

Not surprisingly, like prior 6x6 trucks, they've gone into civilian use in various roles, including as wild lands fire trucks, such as this example.

Modern Ranch Trucks in Use.

If you watch a "modern" Western, to the extent I do so, which is very rarely as they irritate me, chances are you'll find at least some of the ranchers in them driving fairly old trucks.  Maybe Yellowstone, which I haven't watched and will not watch, doesn't do this.

Anyhow, that's only partially been the case in my lifetime. When I was young, and well into my adult years, lots of ranches kept a flat fender style Dodge Power Wagon.  That's no longer the case. They didn't lose their utility, they just became collectors items, and working ranches don't use collectors items of any kind.  They sell them.

Having said that, lots of old trucks remain on ranches for specified uses, some as old as the Power Wagons that went into collectors' hands.  But for daily use, of every type, almost every working ranch has a relatively new flatbed pickup.  Here's a good selection of them from recent brandings.

Every truck depicted here is relatively new, and they're all automatic transmissions as well. Every one.

Indeed, amongst stockmen, I’m the only one I know that drives a manual and lacks an automatic transmission.

All of these trucks are, additionally, diesels. Every single one.  Mine included.

Lex Anteinternet: Standard Transmission

Lex Anteinternet: Standard Transmission: 

Standard Transmission

U.S. Army mechanic servicing a transmission on a heavy truck, during World War Two.

My son recently obtained his "regular" driver's license and therefore is now competent, in the eyes of the state to operate conventional motor vehicles on the public roads.  The vehicle that we own that he's generally allowed to drive is a 1997 Dodge D1500 4x4 pickup truck.  For some reason, over time, this locality has become Dodge central.  We have three Dodge pickup trucks, and they're all standard transmission trucks.  We also have a Chevrolet Suburban, and its an automatic.  Maybe all newer ones are.  Anyhow, the topic of driving came up the other day and he mentioned that a friend of his asked him about how to drive a standard transmission, which is a question I don't think I'd have thought to ask anyone when I was 16 years old.  I knew how to drive a standard transmission.  I think that all the boys I hung out with did.

Which isn't to say that we all drove standard transmissions all the time when we were first driving.  Thinking back, at age 16, I'd owned a vehicle, a Jeep, that had a standard transmission for a year by the time I obtained my license.  But my next vehicle, a Ford F100 (yes, F100, they don't make a "light" half tone any more, but in 1974, the year mine was made, they did) was an automatic transmission.  So was the next vehicle I owned after that, a 1974 Dodge D150.  But since the D150 I've never personally bought another automatic.  I prefer manual transmissions.  I have owned two, sort of.  I inherited a 1973 Mercury Comet, a great car, that was an automatic, and the car that we bought a decade ago for my wife is the aforementioned Suburban.

But I've owned a lot more standards and the only times I've actually purchased a vehicle new, they were standards.  I've owned just about every type as well, from "three on the tree" types, now a thing of the distant past, to the once very standard four speed transmission, to the current six speed.  As most of my vehicles have been 4x4s as well, I've also always had, on my vehicles, the manual shifter for the transfer case.  On one older 4x4 I once had, I had three levers, one for the transmission, one for the high and low range of gears in the transmission, and one for the transfer case, a once very common arrangement that  even those who drive modern standard transmission 4x4s would probably be baffled by at first.

I can't say really why I prefer standards, but I do.  I guess I like the ability to determine what gear I think I should be in, rather than have hydraulic pressure determine that for me.  And most more work like trucks were standards. But that's soon to be a thing of the past.  My guess is that within the next decade a person will have to be driving a very heavy truck in order for it to be purchased with an automatic. When electric vehicles come in, and they will, standards will be irrelevant completely, as they work differently.

Even within the past three decades this trend has been pretty evident.  At the time that I was getting ready to leave the National Guard for law school, thinking that I wouldn't have time to be a Guardsman and a law student (an erroneous decision that, hindsight being 20/20, I would have made differently, staying in the Guard while in school and after) the Army was acquiring automatic transmission heavy trucks to replace the old standard transmission trucks.  Training time, and lack of soldier familiarity with standards, was the reason why.  Since that time I think it's become almost impossible to acquire a manual in a pickup truck except if it was made by Chrysler, and the end of that day is in sight.

Gear shift and Transfer Case shifter, for my (rather obviously dirty) Dodge D3500.  A view of this type will soon be a thing of the past for new vehicles, I suspect.

This is not to say that I'm lamenting this.  I do think manual transmissions are a better option for folks who know how to really use them for trucks, but most people no longer learn how to drive a standard transmission. Shoot, most people don't even call them "standard transmissions" and automatic transmissions really are the standard today.  When electric vehicles come in they won't feature a transmission of this type at all, and neither the current automatic transmission or the manual transmission will remain, although to most drivers of automatics the difference will not be noticeable.

But what a difference it makes in regards to some people's ability to drive.  Back when standards were the norm, there were some who had problems driving simply due to that. My mother barely learned to drive an automatic, I can't imagine what driving a standard (if she ever did) was like for her.  And today, many people simply can't do it. They don't know how.

 Note:  We've added a poll on this topic off to the side.