Must we start at gear 1 or 2?

I would think it could wear out the internals of the transmission faster, a friend of mine used to do something like that in his chevy pickup, and he quickly learned why he shouldnt do it (after he replaced his clutch for the 4th time he stopped doing it)

 

It doesn't damage your transmission, but it does put a lot of extra stress on your clutch, leading to premature wear ( like brian said).

 

Whatever gear you start in, it should be on the opposite side of the pattern from reverse. I've seen so many guys start out in what they thought was 2nd, only to be in reverse instead. It's very easy to get it wrong and back over somebody. It's too easy, in fact.

 

What is a Hino truck?

 

A japanese truck, usually a cabover straight truck (at least here in the U.S.)

 

any gear you start in should be one that the truck starts off smooth with no slippage of the clutch. This is the worst part of starting off in a higher gear is you put wear and tare on the clutch like folks said but you also put a strain on the rest of the drive line to with allot of torque to the u joints and drive shaft and rear end gears it will also cause some damage there if your not careful so i would suggest the 2 or 3 gear at least in the low side of trans rather that the high side.

 

If it lugs it down any doens't it damage the turbo too? Just curious.

 

I used to drive a Hino bobtail. Great little trucks!

I heard the engines were too weak, so later they started using engines made (IIRC) by GM.

In my opinion, you should always start out in first gear. It's murder on the clutch to attempt any shifting-shortcuts. An exception might be, if you are pointed downhill and will roll away from a stop; or if you're at some totally empty intersection, and made a slow-rolling "California stop" at a stop sign.

But if a cop sees you do that, don't blame me!