It's my buddy Pack Rat's truck, 96 one ton 2wd, 454/4L80, He bought it in 05, when it was "slammed" and sat about 3 inches off the ground, it was at a Chevy dealer and he had them put new, stock one ton suspension under it. Yup, Dodge mirrors, he bought it with the smaller factory mirrors, but he didn't like the bigger, newer GM mirrors, since he didn't want to drill any holes in the doors, he stuck a pair of Dodge flippy- foldey mirrors on it, been like that since 2013. I've also never seen this truck without a trailer.
I am really struggling with hill starts, as I am new to this manual thing. Heres how I do it- Handbrake on, clutch fully engaged, build up maybe 2-2.5k revs, off the clutch, and then as soon as it bites, off the handbrake and more throttle. This doesnt seem to work, as I am constantly stalling or rolling backwards... Can someone give me some tips?
Don't stress, keep calm. The quickest way to screw up when learning to drive is stressing out. I failed my drivers test the first time purely because I was so stressed & nervous.
Just go really slow, listen to the car and feel it. When you let the clutch out and it starts to grab the car will start to bog slightly, especially with the handbrake on, which is telling you to let off the handbrake. If you stall, more revs. If you roll back, let the clutch out more before you let off the handbrake. Go slow at first, then with practice you can do it faster.
My car was parked outside a pharmacy & someone trying to parallel park in front of it, backed into it. Then drove off. Thankfully a woman came into the pharmacy & found me. Even gave me the plate, make & model. Shows that whilst there are arseholes out there, we also have good people.
it really gets interesting with new cars wich dont have a classic handbrake anymore so theyll need a hillstart assist
Or, you just hillstart without hand brake like you're supposed to? Hand brake hillstart is a beginner's learning tool most of time --- Post updated --- Sounds like you're cycling through things a bit quick. Start on a flat, handbrake off. Practise rolling car forwards with just the clutch, no throttle. Then find a low gradient hill. Handbrake on to hold you. Slowly release clutch to bite, you'll feel the car wanting to fight the handbrake on just the clutch. Release handbrake, tiny amount of throttle and slightly less clutch pressure and you should roll, now you're off. Slow and delicate wins out. From there is practise. Eventually you can get things down to point where you can use the clutch just to hold you in place on a hill without any throttle (don't though, it's not good for clutch to keep doing this) and perform hill starts with no hand brake at all, you can substitute the handbrake for foot brake. Don't fret about that yet
sometimes its still usefull on really steep hills like where my grandma lives whose driveway is extremely steep
Handbrake on. Clutch held down. Hold the engine at higher than normal revs for pulling away from a stop. Slowly disengage the clutch. When you feel the clutch bite (when the engine starts trying to pull the car but can't cause the handbrake is on) , disengage the handbrake slowly and continue to release the clutch while keeping the revs up. Remember that a handbrake is not either on or off, it can be at many positions in between. Unless you have a fancy new car with a handbrake button, in which case the car will have a hill start assist function to prevent the car from rolling back. Make sure to try and find an empty road to try this on so you don't have to worry about hitting someone else. This way you can practice and gain confidence before moving on to higher pressure situations. You can also try learning to hold the car on the clutch. It's not great for the car because it puts a lot of stress on the clutch but it can be useful for learning clutch control. Essentially you need to find a (shallow at first, can try steeper over time) hill, drive up it, slow down to a halt and try and keep the car still using nothing more than the clutch and accelerator, no brakes allowed. Try and hold it there for a couple of seconds, then try and pull away. This will help you to find what sort of revs are required in your car to pull away too.
