Hey guys i have a quick question, it seems that when i drive my Duster it takes forever to get out of 1st and 2nd gear. Is that normal or do my gears need to be fixed? It seems like i have no acceleration in my stock slant 6. I am planning on rebuilding a slant six and i don't want the gears to be wrong on the one in my garage. Thanks!

-Bryce

Bryce, have you found and ordered those three books mentioned in your last "Help!" thread? If you have not, do so now. They will answer a lot of your present questions and help you think of new, better questions.

When you say it takes "forever", it sounds like the 1-2 and 2-3 shift are occurring very late. With the typical rear-axle ratios found in a '73 Duster with automatic, you should get the 1-2 shift just below 20 mph and the 2-3 shift at right about 30 mph, under the amount of acceleration you'd give to keep up with traffic from a stop when the light turns green on a 45mph road. If your shifts are at significantly different speeds than those, your transmission kickdown linkage probably needs adjusting. It is not wise to ask "How do I do that?" before you have obtained and read the three books to give yourself a baseline amount of understanding of how the whole system works.

Rebuilding the engine? How come? What indication do you have that it needs rebuilding?

I did order a book off of amazon and its on its way hopefully. The engine i have in my duster now is perfectly fine except for maybe my gearing but i plan on rebuilding and hopefully getting a higher preformance engine built and put in. Maybe a new and better cam, intake an exhaust system headers etc. Something that i can have some fun with.

-Bryce

Let's try again: You were pointed at three separate books to buy. Which "a book" did you buy off of Amazon?
It is a mistake to jump into an engine rebuild at your (apparent) level of knowledge. Slow down. Read a lot. Learn a little.

stockel and stockel and i got a chiltons book off of ebay for it, Yes i don't understand much about it but the slant six but thats why i'm hear right? to learn and to take advice to better my car. As far as the engine i'm not doing it myself my father is going to help out. i'm basically buying parts and helping out when i can.

Stockel: Good start.

Petersen: On your shopping list but missing from your "bought" list.

Chilton: Garbage, missing a lot of necessary information and carries a lot of errors. You need a FACTORY service manual (printed by Chrysler), as carefully explained in the other thread.

These books are inexpensive and worth triple their weight in gold. Don't skimp or try to make do, get the right books -- all of them.

Get rid fast of Chilton book (don´t know throw it to fire, make paper airplanes a Godzilla or something) and check again ebay for a service manual, is very complete and teach good basics for your car.

Gears........is automatic transmission right?, you will need to check kickdown linkage and gearbox, meaby they lost sync. or rear axle gears.

If manual transmission, there is something veeeeeeeery wrong, same as above, check gearbox.

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Mopar Muscle is well defend by Slant Six!

Valiant Duster 1971