[DPowers]

Well my wife was mad at me when I decided to make it an automatic. She would rather have a standard trans. To me it came down to what I had available. When I bought the truck, the 283 was in pieces in the bed along with a junkyard 3 speed, so I knew I would have to rebuild the 283 and also come up with a transmission. I picked up a recently rebuilt 350TH cheap, found a tilt column from a '64 Impala (for zero dollars). So that made the most sense to me to put it together as an automatic. If it was a running driving truck with a good transmission when I bought it, I would probably have kept it a standard. Have you thought about going with a 5 speed? My daily driver is a 2000 blazer with a 5 speed and it is driver friendly.