I have been looking at looking at gear vendors, US Gear, and even high impact at their gear splitters/auxillary transmissions to go behind my ranger's M5OD-R1HD. So far I have found nothing. Background for this is that right now im running 265's and on the highway it fine but in the city its a little sluggish compared to the 245's. I plan on putting 285's on when I install my lift, but I dont want to regear because 285's and my stock 4.10 gearing would put my 4.0 SOHC right in the sweet spot while driving on the highway (which is where is spend 85% to 90% of my 25,000 miles a year driving). The drawback i know is going to be driving in the city or offroading. Here are the option I need help with:

1) Swap my BW1354 electric to a manual NP205 with a gear vendor
2) Possibly swap in a 1356 for the 1354 with choice of options (but have found little info for the swap)
3) Swap the 4.0/M5OD-R1HD/BW1354 for a 5.0/M5OD-R2(or ZF5 if possible)/BW1356

I know most will opt for the third option, but how does the first two options hold up or are there other options to consider. For some reason I'm really set on a gear splitter. Thanks for the help and sorry for really really long post!

 

i like the idea of a gear vendors od...i'm going to put one on my chevy one of these days. all your ideas....what exactly are you trying to accomplish? better driveability w/ 4.10s and 285s?

cheapest bet....add power. R.P. Caster supercharger kit.

 

Driveability is the overall goal and with how much it would cost to regear, I was hoping to do some kind of splitter to get the best of both worlds...stock 4.10's and 285's for the highway and 20% reduction (4.92 effective gearing) for the city and offroad.

 

We have a gear vendors in my Dad's Hemi Challenger. It runs pretty well, its on the back of a 727 trans. The added gear is good, however they claim they have for '6-speed' shifting is bs. That doesn't quite work out in the real world.

 

Goody...how well does the gear vendor work for you splitting gears in between shifts. Or is it one that you put in either hi or low and leave it because its a pain in the butt to mess with?

 

We can go 1-over, 2-over, 3-over. Just the thing as far as performance goes, its too much movement going on. You have to hit the button to go into 1-over, shift to 2 while unclicking the o/d button, click the button, unclick and shift to 3 at the same time, click to third.

Really too much hassle! We just drive it 1,2,3,3-over

 

Thanks Goody...I figured thats what it would be like. Our dump truck has a split rearend, and unless i have to split, I just get going then not worry about splitting. I do like having the option to if needed though.

 

Option 3 would be very costly and time consuming (two things I have little of) but the results would be awesome. However, what are the feasiblity of the first two options. Will a 1356 bolt behind a M5OD-R1HD or are the bolt patterns different? If I understand correctly, a NP205 will bolt up, but how hard is it to convert from electric to manual shift?