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rockwells or regear one tons..comments, suggestions please.

rob h

rob h

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I ran my 83, with one tons, 456 gears and 40s this weekend at the local mud bog. I need more gear, the 40s kill the 456s. Id like to keep it street legal even though I hardly use it any more.


Thought # 1... I can get a set of 513 gears for my axles and a locker for a decent deal. I was thinking of adding a set of ctm u joints or something similar to the 60, I already have 35 spline hubs and Yukon 35 spline stub shafts. That should make it have a little more gear and make my 60 a little more tough...But can be done for under 1500.00.


Thought # 2... I can also get a set of 2.5 ton rockwells for a decent price, although id have to put wheel brakes on them to put them on the road. Those wont be cheap but ill have 672 gears now. With keeping in the 40-44 range of tire I should have lots of gear and still be able to drive it. 4th gear at 55 I should be about 2800 with my sm465. This way is a lot more money with needing to do the brakes, wheels etc. im thinking about 3,000.



Or just leave it alone and keep the cash...
 
If you keep your axles, go with 5.38's to make it really worth the ratio change.

Another option is to go with a D70 rear and regear both axles even lower.

Rockwells are neat but wheel brakes will be crazy expensive.
 
Don't the teeth on the pinion after 513 start to get weaker..? Ill look into the d70, ill see what I can come up with.

The Rockwell wheel brakes come out to 400.00 a corner, then lockers, wheels and misc parts. Yes that starts to get expensive, prob heading to be in the 3,000 mark.
 
If your worried about pinion size get a Jana 76 kit to install 70 gears in your 60. A d70 5.86 pinion has 7 teeth where the 5.13 has 8.

0B56DC8C-386C-4783-9865-3938C02309E2-8612-00000616E66970AE_zps020e8b68.jpg
 
38377k5 said:
Don't forget the amount of lift required to clear the top loading Rockwells. And special wheels.
Click to expand...

^^This. My bro put rockwells under his 88 Jimmy. He has 2" lift 52's with zero rates in the front (axle is moved forward ~3 inches). He also has ORD's high clearance engine crossmember. His front center chunk clears just fine now, even so much that he might remove the zero rate (maybe). And about the rims, he took his 15x10 crawlers he already had and cut out the centers and rewelded centers off a rockwell rim in there. It works for him cause it's a trail rig only, but rockwell pattern rims in any aftermarket application are pretty expensive.....but rockwells are bad a$$ though :D

P.S. here is his pirate thread if you are interested in putting rockwells under yours. He has a lot of good info on his thread: http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/chevy/1105404-88-jimmy-hacked-up-tubed-rockwells.html
 
You could go big block.

John (80'427) has a tame 454 with an SM465 and only 4.10's running 39.5x13.50x16.5" tires. He has plenty of power.

Martin
 
Right now I have 10 inches of lift. Up front I have 7 inch alcan 53s with the axle moved 1 inch forward. The rear I have a diy4x shackle flip, 6 inch shackles, 1.5 block and a set of 52 lift springs making it sit level. So I can probably use a zero rate up front and gain more clearance.

Lift im not too worried about, the catch is the width if I did wheel brakes. If I ran the rocks with wheel brakes the smallest wheel I could run is 16.5s. A set of recentered h1's tho might work out...but with a lot of backspace. I would have to sell my current 39s and eatons and buy whats needed. I just read that the rock is 9.5 inches tall from the top of the axle tube. Ill need to measure, id rather the truck not be bigger.



Still tho regearing my current axles might be better all around.....still thinking tho..
 
82355 said:
You could go big block.

John (80'427) has a tame 454 with an SM465 and only 4.10's running 39.5x13.50x16.5" tires. He has plenty of power.

Martin
Click to expand...



My small block is a 350 .040 over 12:5 to 1. Its about 6 years old and about 3,000 miles if that. It revs to 6000 all day on propane, with race gas 6500. Between the machine work, engine parts, bow tie heads etc I have over 4,000 in it. It gets up and goes. Right now I can roll in 2nd and stand on it and spin em. Its pretty healthy. I see tho with the big block tho there would be more torque. I have hurt 3 sm465s from rowing thru the gears:doah:, will be switching to another in a few weeks, no more speed shifting....I have learned to just pick a gear...:D


On the big block subject....A close friend of mine used a 76 2wd long bed. He linked it with a divorced 205, done up th400, rocks, (15 inches of lift plus) and 54 boggers. he just bought a 402 that's 10.5 to 1 that's 400hp. With that motor and those gears it really turns on....the boggers are nice too.
 
I put mine in 1st gear and low range (2nd to me) and start off idle to 5500 or so (out of power at 5000). Even carb limited on lpg it seems to do well. I am going doubler just to slow it down more when crawling.
 
In the mud I usually use 2nd gear and low range. Then I power my way thru at 5500-6000 on lpg. I tried high range and got a little further with more wheel speed, never worked before but the mud was worse than usual.


Mounting the new impco model e right onto the x450 made a whole lot better throttle response. Since my motor doesn't produce a whole lot of vacuum at idle, it starts easier too.
 
Someday I will get around to 2 425s on a tunnel ram. I have all the pieces. Not sure what it will do about low speed on the trail.
 
Gears will help but I think trucks should have BBCs for low end.
 
rob h said:
Between the machine work, engine parts, bow tie heads etc I have over 4,000 in it.
Click to expand...

I am sure it is a good engine, and hind sight is 20/20, but it's to bad you hadn't put that into a big block, I think you would have been happier with it.

Martin
 
In all honosty you could probalby chro mo the front 60 regear both and get 44s for the cost of putting in rockwells.

Wheel brakes are so spendy its insane.

Lots of costs you don't think of either like adapting the drivelines getting everything out of the way for those.

I have put rocks in a couple of trucks and it ALWAYS costs way more than you think.
 
I would hate to guess how much higher mine would be with rock wells.
 
It's not the teeth that are weak, it's the number of teeth that engage at the same time to share the load.
The higher the number, the fewer the pinion teeth which means less contact.
That is why I stick with 3.73 and lower gearing in the Titans or case.
 
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