Anyone done a 4:11 to 3:73 gear swap (1 Viewer)

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From what I have heard, my '78 came with 4:11 gears. No reason to believe anything different is in there. Thinking of swapping some 3:73 gears into it. I know I will gain some top end, and lose some low end power, but for a 40 that will not see much if any off road time... I wonder if I will be happy.

Has anyone out there performed this major surgery??? And... are you happy with the results?

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Do you have a lift?



33" tires are a lot easier to install..... ;)
 
Do you have a lift?



33" tires are a lot easier to install..... ;)

Not sure... Its on 32 -11.5 - 15's right now. Old Man Emu shocks, but I think stock springs. I dont plan on lifting it.

I will try to post a pic later today.

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I have the stock 3.70 or 3.73 gears in my 79 with 33's. It's nice on the road, but slow going off road is tough. I rarely need it, but an orion for those situations sure would be nice.
 
i have a 78 that sees very little off road.... unless u consider the brooklyn-queens expressway off roading, i do. i changed out the 4.10 thirds for 3.70's. with 31-10.5 15 tires, 4th gear, exactly 3000 rpm on my autometer tach, i cruise at exactly 70 mph according to my garmin nuvi 680. off the line it's a little slower, but it was never fast, trust me. and if you're not in a hurry, no gas needed, just lift off the clutch and it just walks away without stalling. makes it much nicer to drive it to work from long island.... it's parked a few blocks off wall street right now. can't wait for the drive home :)
 
We have 3.7's in the '55 but it also has a turbo'd 3B diesel, H41 low range tranny and the three speed transfer case to help out on the low end. We're also running 33x9.5's.
 
Just changed over from 3.7 to 4.11, after 31 years...

3.7 was the original setup on the german market to hit the autobahn.:D
With original tires its a perfect setup with the 3.7 and even up to 33s its no problem. In 1977 my cruiser came with 7.50x16 thats roughly the same as 32s.

Now i got 35s on it for a while and it was time to do something so i changed to the shorter gears.....hell that is a difference now :bounce:

Get prepared to drive 100mph with yours......but dont get caught.:doh:
 
my 78 came with 3.73 gears in it, so you might want to pull the rear diff cover off and check. there is a stamping in the ring gear that is a ratio that'll work out to 3.73 : 1 or 4.1 : 1.
 
Yes and it is my opinion one of the best mods for me. Better brakes need to be addressed at or before, though. I can keep up with traffic without running +3000 RPM's. 80MPH is something like 2400RPM, IIRC. Not for everyone, especially on a rock-crawling website but many of us don't need and wouldn't use three digit crawl ratios even if we had them. I changed the whole third members...plus they are not so desirable by many=plentiful and cheap.
 
my 82 has 3:7's and 33x9.5s I love the combo for my use(which is pretty much just on the road)
 
I want to do the same thing and run 3.73's as well. But I have older 69 4.11's. Any difference? whats involved with swapping thirds on a 69?

Thanks

**Stumpalama** I will take those thirds if its all I'm gonna need for the swap...
 

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