Don't let Jerry totally pull one over on you. I know for a fact he would trade his rig straight across for Jon Jonsson's Viking rig I built with a manual in it. ;)
Absolutely, that is one fine rig. I'd trade straight across for it on Friday and start the conversion to the automatic on Saturday. ;)

This is Jon's rig, I had the pleasure of being on the trail with it one day...


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Absolutely, that is one fine rig. I'd trade straight across for it on Friday and start the conversion to the automatic on Saturday. ;)

This is Jon's rig, I had the pleasure of being on the trail with it one day...


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You don't have any regrets from switching to the auto? You don't miss the fun of the stick? Maybe it is because you've driven so many sticks, but I feel like the jeep wouldn't be as fun without the stick, even though it would be more capable.
 
You don't have any regrets from switching to the auto? You don't miss the fun of the stick? Maybe it is because you've driven so many sticks, but I feel like the jeep wouldn't be as fun without the stick, even though it would be more capable.
Absolutely ZERO regrets having switched to the automatic. Nada, zip. nope. Going back to a manual transmission would reduce the increased fun I have by not having to constantly stomp on the clutch/brake pedals to avoid engine stall, reducing the control I have by simple judicious use of the throttle/brake, etc.. I had an experienced 4x4 videographer following me on a trail yesterday and all I heard him doing all day was having to restart his otherwise well built JK's engine after stalling it multiple times at every reasonably difficult obstacle.
 
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Absolutely ZERO regrets having switched to the automatic. Nada, zip. nope. Going back to a manual transmission would reduce the increased fun I have by not having to constantly stomp on the clutch/brake pedals to avoid engine stall, reducing the control I have by simple judicious use of the throttle/brake, etc.. I had an experienced 4x4 videographer following me on a trail yesterday and all I heard him doing all day was having to restart his otherwise well built JK's engine after stalling it multiple times at every reasonably difficult obstacle.
Hey Jerry when you pull that NV4500 out of whatever vehicle you converting, can I have it? Please. Pretty please!
 
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Manual because of its reliability, far less things to go wrong. I've seen too many jeeps stranded on the trail with automatic problems. I drove home 120 miles with no clutch once! Does an automatic make off-roading easier? of coarse, but I don't wheel because it's easy!
 
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Manual because of its reliability, far less things to go wrong.

This is always one advantage to manual transmissions, I agree.

While I do indeed prefer an automatic in my Jeep, I always try to by all my other vehicles with manual transmissions, because should something go wrong they're typically much easier and much cheaper to fix.
 
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Manual because of its reliability, far less things to go wrong. I've seen too many jeeps stranded on the trail with automatic problems. I drove home 120 miles with no clutch once! Does an automatic make off-roading easier? of coarse, but I don't wheel because it's easy!

Back in college it was beer or new starter. I got pretty good at push starting my CJ-5 by myself :)
 
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This is always one advantage to manual transmissions, I agree.

While I do indeed prefer an automatic in my Jeep, I always try to by all my other vehicles with manual transmissions, because should something go wrong they're typically much easier and much cheaper to fix.
Exactly! Clutches are cheap and easy to do in the driveway and If the battery dies, push start it! I also added a trail hand throttle to my shifter for the tricky situations when you need 3 feet! With my trail throttle I have never wished I had a automatic. I have better control. Before the trail throttle it sucked and was scary in some situations!


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Manual because of its reliability, far less things to go wrong. I've seen too many jeeps stranded on the trail with automatic problems. I drove home 120 miles with no clutch once! Does an automatic make off-roading easier? of coarse, but I don't wheel because it's easy!
I've wheeled in JV since early 2000. I've run the trails out there hundreds of times with hundreds of different rigs and I've yet to see a stranded auto equipped rig on any of those trails on any of the runs I've been on. I wheeled Big Bear and Los Coyotes endlessly and same thing. I have towed a few rigs out of all of those places but never due to a auto trans issue. Based on trail reliability, I don't see an advantage either way.

A well driven auto offroad isn't any easier to drive than a manual. Manuals have a steeper learning curve but are far easier to master, autos have a very shallow learning curve but are far harder to master. Most manual drivers I see on the trail may as well be driving a tractor. Let out the clutch, go until something doesn't and then grab brakes and clutch. Pretty much the case for 99% of the ones I've been around.
 
Exactly! Clutches are cheap and easy to do in the driveway and If the battery dies, push start it! I also added a trail hand throttle to my shifter for the tricky situations when you need 3 feet! With my trail throttle I have never wished I had a automatic. I have better control. Before the trail throttle it sucked and was scary in some situations!


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You can't push start a TJ with a dead battery.
 
I've wheeled in JV since early 2000. I've run the trails out there hundreds of times with hundreds of different rigs and I've yet to see a stranded auto equipped rig on any of those trails on any of the runs I've been on. I wheeled Big Bear and Los Coyotes endlessly and same thing. I have towed a few rigs out of all of those places but never due to a auto trans issue. Based on trail reliability, I don't see an advantage either way.

A well driven auto offroad isn't any easier to drive than a manual. Manuals have a steeper learning curve but are far easier to master, autos have a very shallow learning curve but are far harder to master. Most manual drivers I see on the trail may as well be driving a tractor. Let out the clutch, go until something doesn't and then grab brakes and clutch. Pretty much the case for 99% of the ones I've been around.
I say the PEN is RED, you will say it's BLUE mrblaine. My friends YJ hit a rock on the trans oil pan (might have been a trans cooler line, it was a few years ago) and we had to tow him back to camp. Another one was a guy we came across in Holcomb Valley last summer. He had a later model TJ and his transmission was gone, wouldn't go into anything forward or reverse. Don't know what happened to it, We just towed him back to his trailer which he was a 3 hour pain in the ass.
You can't believe the most complex thing in a any vehicle could be more reliable than something that is far simpler and has far less points of failure.


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Manual because of its reliability, far less things to go wrong. I've seen too many jeeps stranded on the trail with automatic problems. I drove home 120 miles with no clutch once! Does an automatic make off-roading easier? of coarse, but I don't wheel because it's easy!
Funny that in all the automatics I have owned and the manuals as well over the past 50 years of driving and offroading, I've yet to ever have an automatic strand me or give me problems, not even offroad. I did have my Datsun 1600 Roadster's manual transmission strand me when its clutch gave out in San Francisco... 600 miles from home.

Then the battery wasn't dead, it was just low enough to not turn the engine over.
X2 on not being able to push-start a Jeep that has a truly dead battery. If a TJ can be push-started, the battery wasn't truly/completely dead because the TJ's (and all modern Jeeps) alternator absolutely requires 12v from the battery before it can provide power to the ignition system. A TJ will NOT run for long after being jump started if the battery is truly dead... the engine will die in a minute or two after the jump start battery is disconnected and the alternator's magnetic exciter field collapses.

The days of Jeeps being able to be driven with a dead battery after being jump started are long-gone... its alternator design does not allow that to happen any more and it has been that way for probably close to 30 years. Yes you could push start a CJ and it would run fine. I'm not sure when the alternator change was made, certainly in the YJ era.
 
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I say the PEN is RED, you will say it's BLUE mrblaine. My friends YJ hit a rock on the trans oil pan (might have been a trans cooler line, it was a few years ago) and we had to tow him back to camp. Another one was a guy we came across in Holcomb Valley last summer. He had a later model TJ and his transmission was gone, wouldn't go into anything forward or reverse. Don't know what happened to it, We just towed him back to his trailer which he was a 3 hour pain in the ass.
You can't believe the most complex thing in a any vehicle could be more reliable than something that is far simpler and has far less points of failure.


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I didn't say you hadn't run across any, just that I hadn't, where I hadn't, and how long I've been doing it where I hadn't. Obviously you wheel around a different class of wheeler than I do. I don't do points of failure as an evaluation of anything since I can disable your rig completely with the snip of a single wire. That makes it dead in the water with a single point of failure and depending on where and how I do the snip, you could spend days finding it.

I've seen a YJ buggy have a loose wire in the harness under the tub that the driveshaft snagged. It wrapped about 15 feet of the under tub harness around the shaft and killed it deader'n a door nail. Does that mean we should find a way to run our rigs without wires? Not at all and just like your buddy with his YJ, he should take better care of his stuff and protect what needs protecting. I've also seen a TJ with a manual tag his engine oil pan and punch a hole in it. Again, he should have had a skid on it and his ice chest we dumped out to use as a catch pan will never be the same nor will his leather gloved finger he held over the hole while we dumped his drinks out.

Don't blame the trans style for the failures of the owners to take care of their stuff. I've seen a guy punch a hole in the oil galley of a Dana 44 which by your logic means we should not be running Dana 44's. Again, he was being dumb and paid the price.
 
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Then the battery wasn't dead, it was just low enough to not turn the engine over.
Grasping at straws. If the engine won't turn over the battery is "dead" to most people. With a manual it can be push started, with an automatic you can't end of discussion. But don't worry, after I push start my manual I will give your automatic a jump. [emoji12]


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Grasping at straws. If the engine won't turn over the battery is "dead" to most people. With a manual it can be push started, with an automatic you can't end of discussion.
He wasn't grasping at straws at all, he was just being accurate with the terminology. There's a major difference between a weak battery and a dead battery where jump-starting is concerned.

You would be wrong on not being able to push start an automatic equipped vehicle too. While they have to be pushed a little faster, you can definitely still push-start many vehicles that have automatic... the automatic's torque converter couples the engine to the drivetrain in both directions. I push-started my '57 Chevy with its Powerglide automatic at least once during my high school days.

But if the battery is dead like if you left your lights on, you're not going to be able to push-start it no matter what transmission you have.
 
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You would be wrong on not being able to push start an automatic equipped vehicle too. While they have to be pushed a little faster, you can definitely still push-start many vehicles that have automatic... the automatic's torque converter couples the engine to the drivetrain in both directions.

But if the battery is dead like if you left your lights on, you're not going to be able to push-start it no matter what transmission you have.
Now that you mention it I did see a guy push start his little Toyota truck quite a few years back on a steep hill in Ocotilla wells. He had to get it going pretty fast. I don't think anyone could get it going fast enough unless they had a steep hill to gain some speed though.


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Grasping at straws. If the engine won't turn over the battery is "dead" to most people. With a manual it can be push started, with an automatic you can't end of discussion. But don't worry, after I push start my manual I will give your automatic a jump. [emoji12]


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At least I'll only need one jump start since autos don't stall on the trail.