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Hobcobble

With no lock-out hubs, you're still turning the front axle internals
in 2wd. With lock-outs, just your wheels are turning. If your axle
gear ratios are 4.88 or lower, you'll be winding the engine out pretty
good trying to make 60mph.

A local Sweptline friend of mine had some beefier linings made up
for his W300. The drums are made of "unobtanium".... so treat them
well. I've heard of some guys spray welding their drums and turning
them back to spec but have never seen a finished product. Perhaps its
something to investigate?

The steering box has a bearing pre-load adjuster. Its my understanding
that play cannot be remedied via the pre-load adjuster. You can check
with Bud Thorpe on steering box refurbishing as he's been rebuilding
boxes for a long time. If it can be rebuilt, he could likely assist.

As mentioned by others, your truck would have been originally equipped
with the NP420 tranny. These have no synchro into 2nd & 1st gears.

Nice looking '61 by the way! I believe someone on the other Sweptline
site posted a link to the ebay auction.... or was it Craigslist?
I'm a '61 Dart Truck owner myself.... I'm in the process of converting
my D200 to a W200. Good luck with yours.
John

Thanks I liked its looks too - and I did find this on Ebay so the link from another site is probable. Lock-out hubs are now ordered. That's enough confirmation for me - I'll just have to figure out how to install them.

So on the NP420 vs. NP435 - if I had known this truck only had a NP420 I wouldn't have bought it.

Kidding. I actually don't know the difference between the two trannies or understand the impact of syncro gears or not. I do know from trial and error that starting in 2nd and shifting from there seems to be the way to go. Since it didn't really like going from 1st to 2nd - I'm assuming that a very heavy load (or some other reason to start in 1st) would then require a shift directly to 3rd? Or would I still try to go 1-2-3-4?

Thanks for all the help - I don't know what people did for information in the old days!