I love my stick. I looked all over when I was trying to find it though. I think my truck is like a unicorn considering I got a 6 sp with leather captins chairs in an ex. cab. I bought it used with 62k on it and I'm at 131k without a problem. The 35s really hurt the power and mpg though, so if you want mpg I'd stay with 33s or smaller on tires.
But My ole man has an 05 6.0 crew cab auto with evey option know to man and I wouldn't trade my 01 7.3 for it. Gotta love the stick in a "truck"!

 

i love the stick especially w/ stacks for the big rig feel it pulls great the trucks really torque twists with a load, i got 18 when i was driving it every day to work now that it's only driven on the weekends which is all town driving it gets like 16-17

 

Im glad to have read this post about what kwik said happen to his truck. I have a really nice truck right now has good options and only 83,000 miles i got it with 61,000. But me being the way I am always on the look out for the 7.3 super cab short bed 6 speed truck I wanted to get and should have looked harder for. Well I found one at a local used car lot in Reno. A 2001 Supercab short bed the hard to find orange color which I really like actully XLT 6speed has about a 6inch lift with 35's I stopped in and asked to drive they gave me the keys and said have fun. I drive out of there and everything seems good drives pretty smooth for being lifted and having a 121,000 which is 40,000 more then my current 02 I get on the freeway on ramp and start rowing through the gears which feels pretty cool being I havent done that since I had my 84 f250 with a 460 and the swapped in ZF5 speed. I get into 6th and cruise down the freeway at about 70 let go of the shifter and it starts to rattle like crazy. The hand lever for the T case is also rattling a lot. I get off the freeway and drive some city streets back to the dealer. I notice everytime I let off the pedal and shift I hear some kinda clunk in the drive train. I get back to the dealer and get out and let the truck idle in nuteral I craw under the truck and can hear some kinda knock grind noise coming from the transmission. I then knew something had to be wrong with this truck to have it be making all this kinda noise. I gave the keys back got in my truck and drove off. I really liked the truck but the fact that it dose have 40,000 more miles then mine is a year older with older style guage cluster. Made all kind of drive train noise and didnt start to healthy from a cold start ( lots of white smoke and it was idling rough) Lead me to believe lol that I just need to hang onto my truck pay it off keep it for awhile and just buy whatever new Ford diesel has out by then and just order it special with a 6 speed which is exactly what im gonna do I only owe 16,000 on my truck and it books for 20,000 easy, My auto tranny has been great since I bought it and I just did the 20 qt tranny flush at 80,000 miles. I will be doing mine every 20k for piece of mind. I also love how I can smoke just about anyone next to me that isnt in a faster diesel then mine since it shifts so much faster then a 6 speed. I still rather have the 6 speed if I had the choice but either tranny in these trucks is really a good choice as long as its a 7.3 ford.