D2 Axle Build

With a 5 speed, stock gears are less than ideal both on and off road. I wanted the deepest gears possible, but still have a reasonable cruising speed. After doing a little research, I went with Ashcroft 4.75 gears.
They'll give me a 52:1 (compared to 39:1 stock) first gear and will cruise at 70MPH at 3,000 RPM.

3.54 gears and 33s


4.75 gears and 33s


Parts truck the axles are coming from-



Ashcroft packaged shipped to my house in 3 days-



I'm still waiting on an Atlantic British order with ARBs.

wow that is awesome. i was doing 60 yesterday in my D1 and i had to stop short and i thought the lady in front of me was done for. can't imagine if i was doing 70 i would have stopped in time. lol.

Hilltoppersx wrote:

wow that is awesome. i was doing 60 yesterday in my D1 and i had to stop short and i thought the lady in front of me was done for. can't imagine if i was doing 70 i would have stopped in time. lol.

Between the braking, the noise, the vibrations and the fuel mileage, I don't go above 70 anyway haha.

true story.. i got my vibrations down but the wind noise of trying to push a truck shaped like a brick through the air at 70mph is crazy, especially i have a few window seals that are shot so it starts whistling from all different angles .

More parts, it's like Christmas!

ARB Twin Motor Compressor- 150PSI -


ARB Air Line Kit for on board air- 20' hose-


RD128 Locker-


Other Misc. Parts-



Now waiting on the axles and a time to build the them.

Shuler who has been MIA for a few months on here has the ARB air locker setup. it seems like a nightmare to me. when it works i'm sure its wonderful but i have enough headaches with these trucks! Hope to see you have them built and ready for the summer events

Hilltoppersx wrote:

Shuler who has been MIA for a few months on here has the ARB air locker setup. it seems like a nightmare to me. when it works i'm sure its wonderful but i have enough headaches with these trucks! Hope to see you have them built and ready for the summer events

IMO they're the best (having the ability to switch on and off, and having 100% traction compared to LSD), and most reliable (compared to E-Locker) locker on the market. We had them in our old D1 and never had a problem. Time will tell!


Manifold kit necessary for the twin compressor showed up-

The original plan was to put the compressor under the hood in the empty space on the passenger side firewall. It turned out to be way to big to put there, so it ended up under the passenger seat. The compressor and manifold fit perfectly with good access to the air pump.
Hopefully it'll be wired up this weekend.

Yea thats great but how are you going to listen to your one direction cd's?

devildog01 wrote:

Yea thats great but how are you going to listen to your one direction  cd's?

I thought you used to own this truck? It never had a CD player.

It has a cd player. You just have to find it.

It's a trap! You don't want to find what he's hidden in that thing.

Is that really a good place, if you follow ed around enough that areas bound to be under water eventually , just thinking out
Loud

^ jokes from the guy whos profile pic is him sunk in the pines. LOL

Like I said not a great location for mounting electrical stuff

Thebloody323 wrote:

It's a trap! You don't want to find what he's hidden in that thing.

I decontaminated every inch!

TOM R wrote:

Is that really  a good place, if you follow ed around enough that areas bound to be under water  eventually , just thinking out
Loud

I was planning on putting it under the hood, but there just wasn't enough room for it. Plus, there would have been a lot of heat from the headers. Under the seat is a clean, dry spot that has cool, clean air. I had the same thoughts you did, (not about Ed though), and if I ever get stuck in that deep of water, the whole truck is going to be toast. Moral of the story, let someone else try unknown puddles. The compressor is made to run underwater (waterproof electricals and a 'snorkel' kit for the intake) so a little bit water isn't much concern.

This ended up taking a lot longer then I thought it would, but I wanted do it correctly the first time.

I ran the harness through the factory hole on the passenger side firewall, and there was still enough wiring to run it along the transmission tunnel and have it come out at the compressor.



Used some thread sealant and sealed all of the fittings on the compressor and manifold.


Put it all back in and plugged it in and it works perfectly with no leaks.



It took me 50 seconds to air up my 33" tire from 15lbs to 30lbs. 4 minutes to air up all the tires from trail to street pressure isn't bad, and it's a lot quieter then I was expecting. Overall, I'm impressed with the compressor and the rest of the ARB parts.

Wow that's some cfm to fill that fast, no reservoir just straight compressor?

TOM R wrote:

Wow that's some cfm to fill that fast, no reservoir just straight compressor?

It regulates the air between 135PSI and 150PSI and has a flow rate of 6.16 CFM. I don't have a tank right now, but if I wanted to run power tools I'd need one.

Guess I've forgotten to check in over here for a while.

Are you planning to go to bigger tires? I'm running the Ashcroft ATB diffs with their 4.12 hd gears and 255/85 (33") tires. They've made a huge difference in performance and all around drivability.

I'd be concerned that these 4.75 may actually be too low for such small tires though. Have you run this ratio with 33" tires before? I know guys on 35's who run 4.56s, but hadn't heard anyone was up to 4.75 on a tire this small.

Either way, I'll be interested to hear how the 4.75 gears work out for you...

dcarr1971 wrote:

Guess I've forgotten to check in over here for a while.

Are you planning to go to bigger tires?  I'm running the Ashcroft ATB diffs with their 4.12 hd gears and 255/85 (33") tires. They've made a huge difference in performance and all around drivability.

I'd be concerned that these 4.75 may actually be too low for such small tires though.  Have you run this ratio with 33" tires before? I know guys on 35's who run 4.56s, but hadn't heard anyone was up to 4.75 on a tire this small.

Either way, I'll be interested to hear how the 4.75 gears work out for you...

I agree with you on all of that. The biggest difference is having a 5 speed. My dad had a 5 speed D1 on 32s with 4.14 GBR gears and it was was a well rounded truck, but could've used deeper gears in the rocks. For the amount of highway driving I do, (only to events), I figured I'd give up the cruising speed (for now) to benefit in the rocks.

I'm taking the tcase out of my parts truck partly because I don't trust the one I have now, but also to build it with Ashcroft 1.003 high range gears. With 4.75 gears and 33s, it'll get me pretty close to the same speed/RPMs as 4.12 gears.

4.12 gears with stock 1.222 tcase gears and 33s- 70MPH at 2,600RPM


4.75 gears, 1.003 tcase gears, and 33s- 70MPH at 2,500RPM


And if I win the lottery, 4.75 gears, 1.003 high range gears, 5:1 low range gears and an underdrive...


I haven't driven, ridden in, or know anyone (personally) with 4.75 gears, but I have a Toyota with dual tcases which has a final drive of 223:1, and ridden in a 300TDi/R380 Range Rover Classic with an Ashcroft Underdrive. I love gears.

As for tire size, I'm not sure. I always think about going bigger, but there's not much reason.

I'm also interested to see how it turns out. The plan is to strip the parts truck this weekend and hopefully build the third members the 21st/22nd.

Picked up the parts truck and started taking it apart-

Not much to say... Hoping to have the third members built next weekend.

Rear axle is stripped-

Made a little bit of progress. Third members are built and the axles are painted.