As a lifetime stickshift jockey and, like you, buyer of old sticks, know why her truck grind and slip in 2nd. Alway check 2nd syncro first when trying out an old jalopy. 2nd gets the most abuse slowing down to turn. Most just pull it in, and you hear the whine from the syncro clutch as it digs in to speed up the input shaft. Soon it wears out, the crunching begins, and eventually it starts to slip out of gear. The solution, what us old timers had to do before syncros came along. The old double-clutch downshift. You know shift to neutral, let clutch out, throttle up to the engine rpm to match the speed, clutch down and shift into second with barely any effort on that expensive syncro. Been doing it that way since Dad taught me zillions of years ago.

In the 50', my Dad owned generator trucks for stadium lights. He used to clean the batteries with Coke -- and it worked. So today's caller was correct about using Coke. "Youse" guys are so great!!!