Who's running a gear vendors??

[trevmountain]

Just talked with Jess at high angle driveline today about getting a cv shaft for my K30 long bed. I just bolted on a gear vendors and I am running a 6 inch lift so I figured I would most likely need to get a cv style double cardan to mellow out excessive vibration. He mentioned that sometimes these gear vendors don't work very well on these trucks. Something to do with to much strain where it mounts to the 205 transfer case, to much weight hanging. He was saying if I had a double shaft it wouldn't be a problem. Which makes sense, it takes all the weight strain out of the equation.

Anyway after talking with him I went down to the shop to estimate my angle and length. It's an estimate because the motor is not in the truck right now so the tranny and case are kind of teetering on the cross bar. What I came up with was an angle pitch of right around 12 degree's and a length of about 48 inches.

Just wondering about other's that are running gear vendors in there trucks or K5's and if there's any issues ect...

Thanks

 

[trevmountain]

No takers?

 

[shaun89]

my buddy doesnt have a gear vendors but he is running a nv4500/205 and he didnt want the 205 hanging off the tranny so in addition to the adapter mount,he added a mount off the PTO cover and other holes that are designed to go to the bell housing, heres his build thread on our "groups" site. http://kissmydiff.freeforums.org/my-1983-k30-restomod-t96-495.html if it doesnt bring u to the correct page,the pictures of him building it are on page 34

 

[Got Smoke?]

If I remember right your truck is a auto, why not just build a tough 700R4 to go behind your big block instead of fooling with a GV?

 

[trevmountain]

Well I got the gear vendors for 700.00....pretty good deal for a 3000.00 unit. I would much rather have a vendors than a 700r4. No question. But I also don't want to break stuff. I checked out your buddy's build and it gave me some ideas of how I might build a crossmember to kind of cradle the vendor unit. Might be my only solution. Thanks

Anybody else running a gearvendors on there truck or k5....NP 205 case to one piece drive shaft?

 

[Blazinaire]

I've got a 454/th400/np205/GV in my crew cab but I run a 2 piece shaft with a carrier bearing so there is a short shaft perfectly in line with the GV to the carrier bearing. I'm not really concerned with the additional weight hanging off the back of the case too much as this truck shouldn't be getting jumped as much as my last one! Do you need a cv on your setup? my k5 shaft was ~35" long and I didn't need a cv until my wheel travel started drastically increasing (currently around 17" vertical travel.)

Got Smoke?: To further answer your question about using a 700r4 instead, the gear vendors has a unique benefit that your typical 4spd auto doesn't have... have you ever been hauling a heavy load up a grade and 3rd gear was lugging, but 2nd was screaming? With the GV you can keep it in 2nd and grab overdrive and "split" 2nd and 3rd gears or you could do the same with 1st if you feel so inclined, basically you have 6 forward gears with no repeated ratios. Another reson why the 400+ GV is prefered is the extra set of planetaries in the 400 can tolerate higher load and you can keep the unit in overdrive even at full GCWR when towing. I like 700's (I've had 7 in 2 vehicles!) but for heavy hauling, I think the 400+GV is second only to an Allison.

 

[Got Smoke?]

Well I got the gear vendors for 700.00....pretty good deal for a 3000.00 unit. I would much rather have a vendors than a 700r4. No question. But I also don't want to break stuff. I checked out your buddy's build and it gave me some ideas of how I might build a crossmember to kind of cradle the vendor unit. Might be my only solution. Thanks

Anybody else running a gearvendors on there truck or k5....NP 205 case to one piece drive shaft?

Fair enough, at that price I prob would too. Why did you pull the motor?

Got Smoke?: To further answer your question about using a 700r4 instead, the gear vendors has a unique benefit that your typical 4spd auto doesn't have... have you ever been hauling a heavy load up a grade and 3rd gear was lugging, but 2nd was screaming? With the GV you can keep it in 2nd and grab overdrive and "split" 2nd and 3rd gears or you could do the same with 1st if you feel so inclined, basically you have 6 forward gears with no repeated ratios. Another reson why the 400+ GV is prefered is the extra set of planetaries in the 400 can tolerate higher load and you can keep the unit in overdrive even at full GCWR when towing. I like 700's (I've had 7 in 2 vehicles!) but for heavy hauling, I think the 400+GV is second only to an Allison.

I understand how a gear vendors work, I also know they are VERY expensive. That's why I questioned that choice over a OD transmission.