Santa’s bringing gears and lockers!

[DirtyLarry]

Well, here I sit as geeked as a little girl the night before a Hilary Duff concert. Yep, today I plunked down enough dead presidents to score a 4:56 gear set, bearings, rear Detroit Locker and front Detroit True Track for my 1978 Kquazi20. It is embarrassing to confess that I have been rolling around on Q78 X16 (35.5 x10.50) Superswampers for almost 5 years with 3:73 gears.

The crazy thing is the 4 Wheel Parts outlet store in Colorado Springs quoted me $1485 for the set up. The dude scared me when he asked if my truck had ABS twice then asked at least 4 more times if I had a 9.5, 10.5 or 11.5 14-bolt rear axle. That scared me so I called 4 Wheel Parts toll free number in hopes of getting a technically savvy person and luckily got a hold of dude that knew his axle stuff. He knew exactly what I was looking for and quoted $1174 for the same goods including freight.

I guess I will start breaking front axle Dana 44 stuff once this Truetrac is installed….but it will have to suffice until I can find a Dana 60.

[toroflow]

That's cool, but I think you could have done a little better on price.

[DirtyLarry]

I am sure that I could have if I would have shopped around a lot more.

[2wdBlazer]

Don't be embarrased. I still have 3:73's and 38's. Man i need some cash!!

[784X4GUY]

Good luck with it and tell us how she does when ever you get it all installed.....Later....Mike

[DirtyLarry]

Well, the UPS Santa brought the goods today. Of course, it just wouldn’t be my luck if at least 1 item wasn’t missing. Sure nuf, the rear ring and pinion won’t be here until the 27th. Figures it would have to be the rear to show up last as I was hoping to yank the rear pinion assembly out today and run it downtown to have the new one pressed in before the long weekend.

[DirtyLarry]

The results are in….the 4:56 gears, rear Detroit NoSpin locker and front Detroit Truetrac has proven to be pretty awesome on the initial test drive a couple miles from my house. I would have never made it through this crevasse before without consulting a winch and a few friends. The crevasse was deeper than the tires are around! A few of us are headed to the mountains next weekend for the real deep snow test.

Zoomad75 was the master cameraman for the test drive.

My buddies are taking wagers on what the first drivetrain component will be to break. I am betting a front Dana 44 stub shaft or U-Joint....so are they.

You can see the rest of the pictures here... http://chevytruckworld.tenmagazines....ry.ten?id=3924

[Zoomad75]

I'm sold. After watching it crawl through with no drama what so ever I must get my chit locked up. Later on our little test run we climbed up a loose rocky hill with a 1ft shelf of rock half way up it. Lets put it this way Larry putted right up the steep hill, over the shelf and right up to the top. Again, no drama, no wailing big block just nice and slow. I go to climb it behind him. Keep in mind, my drivetrain is geared exactly as what Larrys was before the gears and lockers, 3.73's open with 35's. Now, the bottom half was ok, granny low/4lo was giving me the reduction I needed and made good progress untill I hit the shelf. I don't know if it was my size 13 shoe, caffiene rush from the MDX energy drink I had, adrenilin or a combination of all three when I hit that shelf. I intended on bumping the throttle just enough to pop the front tires over. Nope, I hit the throttle like it was a light switch, on or off. This time it was ON! From there on up I bounced, spun the tires and clawed my way to the top. I get out feeling wired like a junkie looking for a fix and Larry is laughing and says "you had the front wheels off gound coming over the shelf!!!!" Then we looked back at the tracks I made and found I was within inches of going off a ledge sideways. SO, take your pick, locked up running slow and easy or open without enough gear letting the engine sing and spin the snot out of the tires...While the second can be fun, I'm saving my dough for some gears and lockers...

[cheyenne10]

Thanks for sharing your fun. Your album again makes me sick for the rockies.

Any more details on that killer rear winch? Makes more sense if a winch is for your use to pull you back to safety rather than deeper in trouble.

[DirtyLarry]

Zoomad, thanks for coming along on the validation run and being the cameraman. It was pretty interesting watching you launch the BorderPatrol’s front wheels a foot off the ground on that hill. You need to lay off the Mountain Dew stuff.

Cheyenne10,

Exactly, my thoughts. More times that not I need help getting out of a jamb more than getting further into one. That is why a rear winch was first priority. Not many details on the rear bumper other than the bumper is a home made unit and used to be a front winch bumper on a 1974 Jeep J20 and later on a 1988 Suburban. Then another buddy and I flipped it upside down and glued on a receiver and some big D rings then mounted on the rear of mine. I actually have a military spec Warn 12K to bolt on it but it has a burnt up motor. I like the military Warn but not fond of the small winch spool that the military uses as it limits the length of cable that can be used so I may go with a cheap Milemarker 12K winch. The complete cost of the 12K Milemarker is less than a Warn winch motor anyway.

Regardless of which winch I go with …….I need a battery cable long enough and big enough to carry sufficient current from the engine bay to the rear bumper. Unfortunately, the cable I have on order is on hold due to the custom cable builder being out of commission for a while due to a medical concern. Check it out…. http://www.custombatterycables.com/

[Zoomad75]

I'll be there for the comedic relief and my photography skills. We'll see who breaks something first. We just need to go get some spare axle shafts to carry incase one of us does....

Let me figure out a date to make the next snow run. That way we can put that stuff to real use by pulling my sorry butt out of drift I will probably get stuck in...

[Yukon Jack]

Glad you got it all installed and working great - my 69 K20 has a factory No-Spin and it is incredible what it will do in 2wd - it will walk up stuff in 2wd that my 95 Yukon can't do in 4wd.

[DirtyLarry]

Zoomad and a few other friends and I took a trip up to the mountains today to play in the snow. It was a good validate run my new gears, and lockers. I must say I am pretty impressed with them so far. The snow was the very soft powdery stuff that is hard to get traction and over 2 feet deep at the top. Sure wheel speed is the only way to make any progress without sinking.

Click here to watch Snow-run-Feb-2006

Click here to watch Snow-run-Feb-2006-2

Zoomad may have a few more videos and pictures.

[Zoomad75]

I've got a bunch of pics and one video of Dirty Larry yanking out our buddie's Ramcharger. Great run. I'll take the self appointed title of Mr. Ditch and my alias is Friend of OPEC...My tank sucked down at least 30 gallons on the run. 35's and 3.73's is ok when the road is flat, but that 8% grade coming through the canyon was momentum killer.

I have to say I'm pretty proud of my pile today. Yes I put it in the ditch 3 or 4 times but it was my fault not the truck. I must say this, if you play in the snow and don't have gears and lockers at least have good tires. My 35" mud rovers never left me stranded. Dug well and the only reason I did get stuck is because the holes I fell in had me axle deep and the open diffs just let them spin.. To follow all I needed to to is apply generous amounts of Throttle to keep the wheels spinning. (I'm pretty good at that!)

Larry yanked me out well when I did get stuck. At least I got to return the favor when Larry made an effort to blast through the deepest section we had found. I tried it and got stopped. Larry hits it at god knows how fast and starts broadsliding with all four wheels chucking snow. I wish I was faster on the camera, would have been and awesome shot. Well, he slid right into the ditch too. Quick yank from the front from me and off we go.

I'll get some of the highlights uploaded tomorrow and post where to go.

A fun time was had by all...

[Zoomad75]

Heres a Couple of pics from the run:









See the rest here:

http://chevytruckworld.tenmagazines....sp?album=17630