Will Gears Help Me?

[southerlin55]

I have a 93 Ford explorer XLT, 5speed, 4x4, with 30x9.50r15 on it. I live in colorado and i often go to the mountains (11,990 FT). The drive up is killing me i cant seem to get my exploder to keep a constant speed without having to rap it out (im always in 3-4 gear between 3.5-4 thousand RPM) and i can never seem to pull overdrive even on the somewhat flat part. Even rapping it out i still struggle to go the speed limit!

I have herd alot about how changing the gears helps with bigger tires but will it do the same without the big tires and help gain power? The speed limit going to the ski area is 65 mph the whole way so i would like to be able to pull that maybe even more if possible.

I also pull a 2 rail motorcycle trailer (loaded is about 450-500 lbs) very often so if gears would help i would need something were this is still possible!

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks
Tyler

 

[techieman33]

It might, what gears so you have now? If you don't know There is an axle code on the drivers door sticker, it will give you a 2 digit code, something like D4 or 45. Let us know what that is.

 

[southerlin55]

It says Axel/46 which means its a 3.73 open right?

 

[jd4242]

I would go to 410 gears with 30" tires.you may be able to find them in the junkyard.then you can just swap axles,it would be way cheaper.I personally would go 4.56 if your towing and going up mountains,but your talking about around a grand to do it.

 

[southerlin55]

Any idea what rpm 75mph will be at with 4.10? Also sense my truck is 4x4 and i use it in the winter do i have to put the same gear in the front to or can it just be in the back?

 

[jd4242]

I don't know maybe somone with 4.10 can answer that.I can't remember what size stock tires are but I'm pretty sure 30s are not stock so you are losing rpm for having bigger tires so bigger gears would put your rpms bck to around stock.in od you might not even notice it, maybe,but you would have more tq for towing and pulling up mountains.might also want to add an extra tranny cooler to keep temps down,a4ld hate heat and it might be slipping a bit

 

[97sprt4x4]

Any idea what rpm 75mph will be at with 4.10? Also sense my truck is 4x4 and i use it in the winter do i have to put the same gear in the front to or can it just be in the back?

You MUST have the same gears in the front and the back. if you put 4.10s in the rear and have 3.73s in the front and engage your transfer case, you will shatter something in the driveline. Easiest way would be to find a truck that has the gear ratio you want and pull the stuff and swap it onto yours, and more important then gears, would be your Transmission cooling. if you're going to be driving a long time with the rpms at 35-4k you need a lot of trans cooling if you want the trans to last at all.

Justin

 

[97sprt4x4]

and at 75, i'm at around 3200 rpms, which isn't great, but it's not terrible. and i don' tknow if this will fall in the same range as you because i have the stock 5 speed trans.

 

[Tbars4]

...There are graphs, calculator's, and such to be found in the "How to" in my signature...