First m/t: non-rebuilt 85pu tranny behind the 85 conquest engine at stock boost. Tranny got a little noisy and shifter got real sloppy, and floppy under on/off the gas. Cruising fairly level highway, and tranny blew in 5th. Lost all gears but 4th. Parked it. Tranny had pounded out a mainshaft spacer, letting main shaft walk fore and aft, and it ate the inputshaft/mainshaft bearings, and mainshaft became so sloppy you couldn't get an indirect gear engaged. I am told that you can use the tranny internals from an 88-89 starquest to beef up the m/t with good success, but I don't offhand know of anybody who's actually done it. I never did it because the a/t turned out to be so much better for me...

Swapped motor into 87swb a/t nonlockup. Worked just fine, and the only problem was when I broke the oil pump gear in the tranny by not socking the converter in all the way before I mated the motor. Me dumb. Rebuild horror story. Me dumb again. Bought jy tranny and tcase for $300 and installed same. ran fine til I blew the motor, some 50k+ miles. needed a lockup converter tranny from a 90-91 v6 to be perfect. I think the lockup a/t is perfect for the turbo motor in the truck. You use the whole v6 tranny with the 4cyl bellhousing.