v840 wrote:Stop farking around and get tcase gears from lowrange or locktup. End of problem. Its money that should really be factored in to any zook build from the get go.
If you still feel you need more gearing after you have put in the case gears, then look at diff gears, but IMO tcase should come first.
YMMV.
X heaps.
$500 for two sets of diff gears seems great, until you add 2X diff rebuilds ($250 each, indicative) then your diff guy tells you that one of the gearsets has corrosion on it because it was in a car that never went into 4WD and you hvae to find another one.... then you put solid spacers on the pinions to stop them collapsing and flogging out etc etc - next thing you know, you have well, well over $1K in the job.
I've seen diff gears destroyed through bad setup (even by workshops). Gears need to be setup by a professional shop with a good reputation for diff work. Getting it a little it wrong will result in short gear life, as a result there's more $$ in the labour to fit diff gears than in the gears themselves, especially if the workshop fits them on a drive in/drive out basis.
Yes, the 5.12's will gear your car back to stock with 33's on it. However, the added traction of the 33's will mean that stock gearing isn't adequate for 33's generally off road, let alone in steep country. Crawl ratio goes to about 41:1, up from about 30:1. I don't think sierras are nicely drivable with over 31's on them until crawl gets above 60:1.
Mines at 125:1, which is silly, and I don't need first very often, but it is great to drive in technical terrain., and is still great in mud - my 1st high is the same as a stock sierra's 1st low, so I use 1st high in mud or 4th low. (33:1)
I have 5.12 diff gears and a Trail Tough 6:1 gearset, mostly because I'm running tyres of 34"+ and have a motor that needs to rev on the highway to work. If I had a 1.6 or something I don't think I could see any resaon to go into the diffs to correct the gearing - the transfer gears would be enough.
I couldn't recommend Rockhopper gears from what I've seen, I do understand they are much better than they were, but I've seen too many failures, seen too many warranty hassles, and they've been too inconsistent (noisy etc)
I've not seen a set of US supplied gears break, and it's been a while sonce I've seen Rockhopper gears break, but that might be because most of us are using Us supplied gears now.
Look though the % correction high range numbers - I went with TT gears as I knew I was going to run diff gears so I wanted the smallest high range reduction I could get (16% from memory) but if you knew you weren't going to go into the diffs you might want to look for more high range reduction.
As an aside, Everyone I know who has had 4:1 transfer gears has either gone to 6:1 or wishes they had. Once you get a taste for the control they give you, you want more.
That's my take on it.
Steve.