Stevo, you need to line up your gear mesh. The clutchbell will be spinning on idle, that's what the clutch is for. When adjusted properly, the clutch bell spins on idle and does not engae the clutch. When the revs are increased, it spreads the clutch shoes and grabs the clutch bell, allowing the power to be transferred to the drivetrain.
Do a quick search and learn how to line up your gear mesh. That's what the problem is if the clutch bell (metal gear attached to the motor) is not connected to the spur gear (big gear that should be touching the gear on the motor). You will need to loosen the engine mount bolts and line up the spur gear, put fresh loc-tite on everything, and tighten it back down. If the spur gear is warped at all of has teeth missing or chewed up, then replace it. You should always have a few spare spur gears on hand, especially until you learn how to properly set the mesh.
Mr clean, the advice that you gave him was good for adjusting the shift point, but that's not going to help me now. Stevo, it's a possibility when you tore down the transmission, upon assembly you installed something wrong and apparently its either binding up, or it got bound up and stripped something, or maybe there is just a piece missing or in the wrong place to keep it from working. For the shift point, I would bet you $500 that your problem had nothing to do with the transmission (at first, before you took it apart). Your problem was most likeley a tuning problem. Next time something happens, you're welcome to come on here and ask us questions to help you out. We probably could have saved you a lot of headaches. I think your truck is probably running rich. I learned this through having to figure out the same issue. WHen you truck is out of tune, even just a lil bit, the engine will not run at it's peak, and therefore will not go ahead and shift over into 2nd gear. I think you need to get some assistance in the way of illustation and parts diagrams and look over the transmission, assemble it according to the instructions, inspect all the parts while you're doing that, and get it back together. Once you get the tranny together, and get the truck back to where it was before you ever took it apart, you can start over fresh.
Do you have a temp gun? If you don't, don't run the truck again until you get one. It will help you out SOOO MUCH, as well as it might save your engine. Once you get the tranny together, come back on here and one of the veterans will help you tune it correctly. You should only have to adjust the tranny shift point by a fraction of a turn, so I'm pretty sure that you had a tuning issue if nothing was broken. If you listen to one of the tuning gurus, like Rolex, he will guide you through tuning it perfect. It's amazing the way that he can guide you through finding a tune from a tousand miles away, but you have to do EXACTLY as he says, or he wont be able to diagnose what the truck is doing and put you on the right path.
