you guys are killing me with this thread, seriously....
ruining the MV hobby by traveling fast on a highway?
tires only rated at 55 mph and a deuce is not "made" to go over 65 mph?
Where does this **** come from?
Maybe I spent too many years on pirate where people actually build all kinds of cool custom creations that work and they understand mechanics and suspension geometry and that ANYTHING can be done, often easier and simpler than what is thought and the people who say that it cant be done frequently have **** thrown in their face by the guy who just went into his garage and did it!
If you want to talk to someone who KNOWS what they are talking about, pick up the phone and call Steve Gerstner at Differential Engineering or Randy Ouverson at OEM. These guys KNOW gears and axles and what their limits are and what you can do with them and cant do with them. I properly built and maintained Rockwell axle will cruise down the hwy at 70 MPH just as easily as it will cruise at 55 mph... The axle doesnt know any difference. Call Steve and Randy and tell me I am wrong.
A 2.5 ton Rockwell is "stressed to it's limits" under the front of a stock deuce? It's conservatively rated at 11,000 to 12,000 pounds. Go weigh the front end of a STOCK deuce on a calibrated scale and tell me that even with a winch and bigger tires and so on that the FRONT END of a deuce weighs anywhere near 12,000 pounds.
Enough said.... Now, the rock crawling world has been using deuce axles for years to do all kinds of crazy stuff... This means 800 horsepower tube buggies with 46-54" tires racing up hills bouncing off trees and literally flying through the air... I would be shocked to see much break on a stock axle with that bag of **** multi-fuel engine making a whopping 160 hp or whatever it is.... Want bigger tires and more speed and more power and better MPG and more lift and better articulation and better traction off road and lockers and better drivability and hydraulic power steering and pinion brakes that work right and on and on and on??? ITS ALL BEEN DONE BEFORE!!! And it's been done over and over and over again.... you guys need to pull your head out of the sand and get with the times... There are people on here that make me wonder why they even bought a deuce? They dont even understand the most basic concepts of a truck like gear ratios, tires sizes, diesel engine mods, what a locker is, why you cant have a 4.90 in the rear and a 6.71 in the front and why drum brakes suck ass and why you dont want a direct drive transmission or a motor on the rev limiter all day and all kinds of other weird, crazy, zany **** I have read on here. This stuff is all online and has literally been posted hundreds of times. If you dont know how to do rpm versus gear versus tire size calculations, go look it up. Don't come on here and post a bunch of crap and ask someone to hold your hand and explain it to you...You are reading and posting in the deuce modification and hot rod sub forum, so the "assumption" is that you want to make your deuce better. Go read and educate yourself. Everything has been done and posted a million times.
Tires may be rated at 55 MPH, but if you know anything about commercial tire ratings you will know that there is a HUGE safety margin in there and that load and speed ratings are typically rated TOGETHER... So this means if a tire is rated at 5000 pounds and 55 MPH, then you can go put 10,000 pounds on EACH axle and go 55 mph forever and the tires will be ok as long as they are in good condition (no cuts, not dry rotted, etc).... How many people here run their deuce down the road at 30,000 pounds for hours on end, raise your hands??
No one does that, so get the 55 mph tire rating out of your head, its absolutely baseless and ridiculous. Start a thread if you want on how many people have had a blow out traveling down the hwy in their deuce due to 60-65 mph speed, it wont have many posts I can just about guarantee it...
The problem with speed on a deuce is that you are polishing a turd. Plain and simple. You have a motor that is a dog. Swap a 300 - 400 hp Cummins, Powerstroke or Duramax from a modern one ton truck into your deuce and you would have no trouble doing 65-80 mph down the highway. An Allison 1000 and the Dodge/NVG 47 and 48 series transmissions can be built to hold over 1000 HP. These are one ton truck transmissions guys with aftermarket parts that anyone can buy. Same goes for a ZF6 or an NV4500 or even swapping something like an 8406 Eaton behind a ISB Cummins. Its all been done before. Newer and better tech than your 50 year old whatever, I can guarantee it...
You want 4.90 gear sets to go faster or get your RPM down? Call Randy and get a set, they are bad ass. Will your 160 hp turd motor push a 13,000 pound deuce on 46's down the road with a 4.90 gear set? Sure it will, just not very well... It is a system of mods and you have to integrate everything to work together. Are you willing to spend $4000 on gears so you can go 60 instead of 55? If so, knock yourself out, but I might be inclined to get an 6406 out of a wrecking yard for $500 and swap that in and save myself a few grand. Or better yet get a better motor or a more powerful one. Just dont get too crazy, you may just "explode" your fragile deuce with all that extra power.
These trucks were built to be very simple and very reliable and to be driven and worked on by 18 year old snot nosed kids that just graduated high school... It is now 2012 and technology has improved by leaps and bounds in every field of trucking and automotive engineering.... You should talk to the people who know what they are talking about, people that have done it, people that build axles for rock buggies and 1500 hp mud trucks and people that run 60" rice and cane tires... those are the guys who know where the limits are and where to spend the money... You will NOT break these parts on your modded deuce. If you want to go faster, drop RPM, have better street-ability or whatever it is that you are after, there is a proven way to accomplish it and make your deuce whatever you want.
If you are a purist and you want to only see a 45 mph truck painted original colours with ten NDT tires on stock wheels with the original CARC, etc... STAY OUT of the hot rodding forums... or at least dont come in here and bash on people who want something else. There is no reason to drive 45 mph, there is no reason to use NDT tires when better treads have been available for years, there is no reason to put CARC on a restored truck (it was sprayed by the military so that chemicals could be easily cleansed from equipment, not an issue you are likely to deal with) and there is certainly no reason to have things like stock drum brakes, non OD transmissions and the like. If YOU want these on YOUR truck, knock yourself out. If someone else doesnt like them and wants to step into the 21st century with the rest of us, who are you to tell them they are crazy or they are ruining "the hobby" or other such ridiculous non-sense?
Finally a 3116 motor as with most things made by CAT is a raging piece of ****... They are expensive to work on, can be hard to find parts for (many are dealer only) and CAT is now out of the on-road diesel market so this may get worse in coming years. There are SO many more engines that would be a better choice than this thing. It does have an SAE2 bellhousing pattern so if you are inclined to swap it, any MDT engine will bolt up to the stock transmission and you will not need an adapter. Getting rid of the motor or getting rid of the motor and trans would be a much better solution than keeping a ****ty motor and swapping out a decent transmission IMO, but as I said before, not everyone likes the same things and everyone has their own opinions.
That's my three cents for the day, i'm outta here.....
opcorn:
... not even 6% increase. Like having a .94 overdrive gear!
for what it is worth.
