trailgear has a 4.70 gear kit, however i would need to get a an older transfer case that is gear driven, as well as other parts,
or is it more worth while to go with dual set up

 

What type of wheeling do you usually do?

Running a 4.7 box only is fine when you need to go really slow. If you ever need wheel speed, or just want to keep up on a smoother trail, it sucks.

Really, why bother with one or the other. Do both.

I ran mine that way for 2 years, dropped in the second case, and haven't been happier.

 

i do all types whealing really,
well doing 4.70 is alot cheaper then getting a another one dropped in, so that is why i was thinking of doing that after my lift kit gets here

 

oh also an onther note will i need to extend my front brake lines after a 1.5 Ball Joint spacer

 

shouldn't have to extend the brake lines
but it wouldn't hurt either... particularly if you stainless/braided lines.

 

that is really low especially if you just do general wheeling. 4.70 without going duels with a 2.28 front case is IMO for rock crawling specific rigs. unless you go duel cases a more usable option would be to get lower diff gears.

 

how slow would the 4.7 tcase be if you had the tranny in 5th gear?

 

I could do about 20 mph in 5th gear, 3500-4k RPMS.

A 4.7 box only is good if you do rough trails where you don't really go fast, or have smooth sections. Its not good in mud at all, and it sucks for camping trips where you want to move along but still have low range to go over a few rough areas.

I would ask this: In your wheeling now, are you finding yourself slamming over obstacles constantly, or just every once and a while. If its all the time, I'd get the 4.7's. If it is rare, save the cash to put into a locker if you don't have one. Or armor. I'd certainly look at armor before getting 4.7 gears.

 

Well lets see. If you go with the 4.7:1 you're a little limited in speed, even in 5th.

If you go with duals you have the 2.28:1 (multiply by your tranny 1st gear and diff ratios) or (with both t-cases in low) 5.19:1. With the added t-case you have a lower crawl ratio as well as other options.

 

Oh great reply!!!! One locker in the rear and some armour will get you a lot farther than low gears and open diffs. I locked and armoured mine first and it was a great set of upgrades.

 

very true. THere is nothing i have done yet that i would have wanted lower gears, but what i have wanted is a locker. The times that i have gotten stuck was not because of lack power or ground clearance but lack of traction.

 

not trying to hi jack this thread, but I'll ask questions since I'm guessing the OP might have similar ones.

I understand that dual cases would be much more ideal than regearing a single tcase. I was just wondering how slow the single 4.7 itself would be, since it's much more affordable than running duals. Thanks for the input. 20mph in 5th gear is pretty darn slow, and it would be a pain to keep having to stop to throw it into 4hi.

As you guys have suggested, I plan on getting a locker as my next major upgrade. Right now I'm on 31s with 4.10 gears...so I find myself bouncing over obstacles at much faster speeds than I'd like. Would a locker help this at all? I understand that the locker will greatly increase my traction, thus I won't have to "force" myself over obstacles as much. But still, it doesn't seem that it would do anything about the fact that I have to go way faster than ideal in order not to stall.

 

and you can't put 4.7 gears in your chain drive tcase

 

You wouldn't need to use momentum to get over obstacles as much, you are correct. Your overall gearing, of course, does not change. a locker with 4.88's or 5.29's would be good. You got it apart and it would correct for 31's. I have 4.56 gears and it feels alright, I wish my truck had 4.88's in it though. I have been driving across the pass here and wish i had lower overall gears, would definitely help maintain speed on the pass and keep the truck in it's power band.

 

SR5 said in his first post that he understood he would need an older transfer case.

On that note, the cost of all of that, you could do locker and some protection for the truck for the cost if not less of the lower transfer case project.

 

If you have a chain drive case, you can put a crawl box in front of it with an MC10 adapter from Marlin for the same (or less) than doing low gears in a geardrive case.

Chain drive cases don't sell for squat used.

 

4.7 duel cases will make a huge diference in how your truck does while wheeling, i have 5.7 duel cases in my 86 4Runner, major improvement over stock.

 

If you enjoy wheeling the 4:7 will serve you nice. The slow thing is a PITA, I ran this set up for a while. Many situations low was too low and hi was too high. But it greatly improved my abilities. I didn't have the capabilities to set up duals. In hind site I'd have started dual stock cases. I only ran the 4:7 without a locker for a short while. Now that I have dual t-case its the only way to go. When I had only 4.7 I'd never of thought that I'd find myself using lower gear, but the added control and sure footedness is awesome.

My vote is go dual stocks to start with , you'll save money in the long run. And being here in Wa if you like the mountains you'll need lower gears.

 

Just installed 4.7's in one of our 4Runners and it is a great setup. We wheeled at Tellico and I never found that it limited the speed too greatly. But then again, the 4Runner has a pretty stiff spring setup so we never wanted to go that fast.

If you do the math, with 4.7's in Lo and 5th gear you are roughly equivalent to Hi in 1st gear. Also, with 4.7's in Lo and 2nd gear it is roughly equivalent to stock Lo and 1st gear. That should give you an idea of what it feels like.

Another cool thing about 4.7's is that the speeds from 1st to 5th are tighter than with stock 2.28's. I always find with the stock case that when I upshift, in order to keep in a reasonable RPM range I need to increase the truck's speed too much. With the 4.7's an upshift only requires a small increase in speed.

 

I made a spreadsheet for calculating idle speed in each gear awhile back when thinking of doing the 4.7 gears in my t-case. I used 1000rpms as the base, so if you wanted to know how fast you could go in each gear, if you assume a shift point around 3000rpm you can just multiply the speed below by 3.

This is for the W56 Tranny, your gearing may be slightly different.

31" tire, 4.10 gearing, 2.28 t-case, 1000rpm:
1st - 2.5mph
2nd - 4.61mph
3rd - 7.15mph
4th - 9.87mph
5th - 11.61mph
R - 2.41mph

31" tire, 4.10 gearing, 4.7 t-case, 1000rpm:
1st - 1.21mph
2nd - 2.24mph
3rd - 3.47mph
4th - 4.79mph
5th - 5.63mph
R - 1.17mph