Hill climbing with standard eight?

Posted by LemuelGulliver On 2017/6/16 18:51:56

Howdy everyone,

I recently finished a lengthy drive with my 726, and though it was great fun there were a couple of hills that the car seemed to just barely able to climb. Some of them weren't terribly steep, but approaching them from a slow speed (say, after coming out of a turn) I found that third gear wasn't quite enough. Now, typically, I find the third gear to be powerful enough to do almost anything. These cars have so much torque that I can slow down to 5 mph or less and still pull away in third gear. On at least one hill I had to stop completely, drop it into first (I actually used the stump puller, low-low gear) and start again.

I've been suspicious that the car is running slightly lean (when engine breaking from high speed, say 40-45, there seems to be a bit of burping, like very slight backfires through the carb, but not loud, gunshot like backfires through the exhaust, and it stalled once or twice when parking) but I don't think it was so lean as to cause a loss of power when going uphill. Or could it be?

What do you do when approaching a hill? Do you need to drop it into a lower gear, or do you find enough power and torque in third gear? What kind of speeds can you usually maintain going uphill?