That problem can be solved with a manual shift kit. The auto's aren't cheap but if you built one and put in an extra cooler and made it so it could accept a gear driven case you could outcrawl a manual tranny with just a single 4.7 instead of having duals.
Back around the late 1980’s I did some research on what was available to modify my 1986 automatic trans. I could not find anything available that allow me to manually “speed shift” between gears. I also talked to a Toyota mechanic at a Toyota dealer.
Fast forward to today… there may be a “shift kit” available now that would solve my problem back in 1989.
My automatic had too much lag time between gears. For example, on a trail, in 4-wheel low, while climbing a steep hill I would start in 1st gear, holding the shifter in 1st gear, then manually shifting into 2nd gear, then as I lost momentum, I would manually down shift back into 1st gear. The tranny would NOT shift back into 1st gear until I was almost completely stopped… NO BUENO!!
So, the bottom line for me was simply that I did not have enough “control” when selecting gears.
On the positive side, I loved the way I could control crawling by loading the drive train by using my brake and throttle at the same time. The crawl control was awesome. On the sand dunes, mud, and snow, the automatic was great!
And, of course my daily driving was really nice not having to constantly clutch and shift in heavy traffic. I could always hold my cup of coffee in one hand while driving with other!
Gnarls.
