kind of a side trip, but that was one of the things i didnt like about the wifes 89 bronco. when your on ice you use the tranny to slow down, going from D to 1 really sucked. its great for a car your cruising but for race shifting or offroad, shift control is what you need.
There has GOT to be a way to convert the AOD's 1-d-od pattern into the 1-2-d-od....and I'm positive someone has done it. I believe it was either Lentech or Baumann that did it...used a OD electric solenoid that controlled a passage in the VB so you could mount a button on the shifter, console, dash..whatever that shifted to OD when you wanted it. I bet if you call around, you'll find exactly what you're looking for. Whether it's cheap or not is a different story, but I bet its still cheaper than doing a 200R4 swap. Those things are junk! They can be built to take some abuse, but it takes more $$$ than it would to just build an E4OD or AODE with the proper controllers. EDIT: Go to Lentech's website. First you will notice a Maverick on its back bumper on the home page. Next thing you see is a list of AOD stuff....valve bodies that will allow you to hold 1st, 2nd, 3rd gears...and the option of having an electric OD with the flip of a switch. Looks like a good deal to me. I wish I had seen that stuff when I had my '74...would have made a great cruiser. Also, the only time I'd use a GM transmission in a non-GM application would be a Powerglide, and even then, I'd think twice about it.
Starting in '94 AODs could be manually shifted into 2nd. The button on the shifter activated a solenoid that gave you OD.
