Woodstock

When I originally did the spring over, I disassembled a pack and dummied in a main leaf only, to see how much swing I needed. Theoretically, the main can only get so long when it's straight, but maybe with bushing wear, it gets a little longer, as evidenced by wear marks on the top of the spring eye hitting the frame.

 

Wrapping up the springs and shackles. Here is the old position, after it settled for 7 years.

New position with new spring pack and 5" shackles.

I am now contemplating my next project, overdrive, teralow gears, and more. But first, we need to have some mid-winter fun, off to KOH. We loaded up the tux and made the 7 hour jaunt down 395. It was good timing, almost like we had a 1 week halftime of winter. Since then, 395 has been closed for a big avalanche.

This giant race event is a ton of fun. We ran around the lakebed, and up to different spectator areas.

Our group at the cell phone bush, checking messages.

At night, fireworks shows all around us.

And good campfire time with old friends.

One of the coolest parts is being able to interact with the racers in the pits, around town, and at the finish line. Nick elbowed right in there to congratulate the 4400 winner, at the podium. So it's fun, and he had a great time.

 

Back from the fun and recovered. Next on the list for Woody is to fix some gearing. First problem is, since I went to bigger tires, I can't climb a highway 6-9% grade in high gear anymore, especially heavily loaded for a trip, or with a trailer, or both. Before the build up of this jeep, 33" tires and 5.38's, I could pull most grades in high. Now, I think the effective gear ratio is up to 4.88 with the 37" tires, and it's not quite doing it. And every direction I go is over a mountain pass, which already has the 225 sucking for air. The answer is an overdrive, so I can have 3rd-over gear. Second problem is the wide ratio between 1-low and 2-low. Most crawling is fine at 1-low (now 94:1), but when I see a flat spot, it's nice to shift to 2nd, (45:1) and it's too high a lot of the time. So i'm looking for something in between. And come to think of it, a super-low gear would be nice too, for that really rocky spot, so I think a 3.15 gear set in the Dana 18 is in order. Hell, why not?
So, I order up the 3 gear set, plus the special OD bowl gear to go with it, from Herm. AA also has these, is easier to deal with (ONLINE! what a concept), but I got them fast, so get started.

I have a good used (by me) Warn 29 tooth OD, so all I have to do is swap the bowl gear. A little disassembly.

Take the spiral ring out and it comes right apart.

This is where I remember I need the Torrington bearings that go inside, because I won't get these out easily, or without destroying them. I will need new ones to go in the new Teralow bowl gear.

 

I was so into yesterday's episode. I Hate it when you leave us hanging. Like a cable TV show.

 

Well, it's supposed to be a build thread, so I try not to bore you with too much actual fun.

 

Here is a visual on the old gearing, new 3.15 low range gears, and overdrive.

For my high range issue, I was trying to shift 4th 5.4 to 3rd 9.1. Now it's half that at 6.8. This will be nice pulling a mountain highway grade.
For my low range, if it's really tough, 119 1st. But most likely will use 1-over at 89. Then if I want to shift, it's not all the way to the old 47 2nd, it's now to 60.5. Then 2-over at 45.

 

You have a couple of numbers switched around, but I get it. For some reason I thought you had an overdrive. The 4 speed has some annoying splits
in ratio, to the point of bogging on up-shifting. OD smooths that out. Nice low range splits with the 3.15 and the OD low range almost puts you back
to what you had.

 

What? Darn it, fixed it. That first beer got me after a long day. I never had an OD in this jeep, mostly because of the PTO winch. And yeah, I think 1-over will be so close to what I had, that will be the crawl gear. And being able to speed up a little to 2nd, instead of the big jump will be nice.

 

Like for the first-

 

Move to a 6 bolt pto off the 420, run od, pto winch.

 

Interesting idea, I think I have one of those. Benefit would be shorter driveline, but would not be able to change speeds with the transmission. The one I have in my M37 is like that, and it tends to run a little fast. But food for thought.

 

I run mine off the T18. On the slow side unless you throttle up.
https://youtube.com/shorts/pW6Le88B5h8?feature=share
https://youtube.com/shorts/ddVCmpZ3ln8?feature=share

 

Very cool. Mind if I see your shifter setup? The M37 comes up just along my right calf.

 

Your PTO shaft looks like it could use A support bearing . I've seen the shafts
buckle when they wipe like that.

 

That was 2 pieces of junk shaft welded together. I've since replaced it with a new straight piece.

 

I'll snap a photo tomorrow. It shifts using a cable on the dash.
https://zips.com/parts-detail/-sdr38d

 

Unless running hydraulics, air, etc. I don’t like running a transmission mounted pto. Unless the pto is reversible you don’t have power out, and only one gear in. Run off the transfer case you have power out and as many speeds to the winch as you have transmission gears. This means you can pretty closely match winch speed to wheel speed which can be extremely useful.

 

I'm pretty sure Herm has the adapters to put the PTO on the back of the overdrive. My dad has that setup on his GPW:


It ends up pretty far back so you'll need an eight inch or so longer PTO shaft. You need the overdrive in direct gear to drive the PTO but it works great.

 

I was just about to mention that.

 

The Dodge ones are reversible, not sure about the Muncie ones. And as you and I mentioned, you don't have the speed control you have with transfer-mounted. Also, looking at the Dodge, they hang way down in kind of a vulnerable area, behind the left front tire.