Hey guys, I bought a new gear vendors overdrive for my 96 dually. I was just wondering if any of yall have one and what your opinions of them were. I can't wait to have a double overdrive.

RubberDuck

 

i had the US gear on my 89 its basically the same thing, i liked it especially with the manual transmission. it was nice having that inbetween gear running the hills so you can keep it right in the sweet spot of the power. double over was nice on the flat stuff but with a head wind or any climb the egts come up in a hurry. If i wasnt gonna get a bigger truck to tow my trailer i would put one in my F250, but im looking at a medium duty like a international 4400 to do it.

 

What did that cost? Do they have a website? How long to install? I am interested because at highway speeds especially,I keep reaching for another gear beyond the 5sp man OD.
I only just started looking around for an aftermarket overdirive, so any information you can provide will be much appreciated.
Thanks!

 

Just wondering if you got your spliter put in? How does it work? Whats your milage? Thanks

 

Hey jake , why not go all the way and get a class 8 ? They aren't much more money but have lots more power and stability . You could drop the front drive if you only want a single axle too . Check out escapees.com , then go to discussion forum and scroll down to HDT , more people are skipping the MTDs and going this route ... Just a thought ( I know... SCARY !! )

 

nev,
It works great, my mileage went from 420 a fill up to over 500 when I'm not pulling. Probably something like 17 or 18 from 14mpg. I love it. The install kinda sucked because I had to fab some of my own stuff. When it comes to single cabs, gear vendors doesn't have a clue. Extended cab or crew cab you could have it bolted in in an hour. They sent me a few different brackets, and none worked. Not to mention I have my exhaust running up through the middle of the bed for my stacks. That was tricky. But I made it all work. But I had to wrap my exhaust in header wrap double thick to keep from overheating the gear unit. All in all not to bad.

Kwik,
Your right kinda.....You can use it engine braking. But not below 30ish mph. The gear unit works off hydrolic pressure. The od won't engage until the driveshaft is spinning fast enough which is about 30 mph. So you can't split first and second. I tried to split 3rd going up a hill and it shuttered like it didn't have enough pressure. So I split 4th, and 5th. But if your pulling massive shizzle then no you don't want to use it to slow down. It will do it, it just has it's limit. So far with a gooseneck and a 8000 lb truck no problem. When I'm pulling that heavy I only use 4th over. Because going forward 4th with the od unit on is stronger than your stock 5th gear. And yeah the guys at gear vendors said you shouldn't back really heavy loads on soft ground. The way I figure, if I gotta back my rig up in the mud fully loaded, I screwed up somewhere and should pay the price of having to figure out how to get out of there without backing up. But forward, it's bullet proof. Not to mention, I ain't gonna split reverse no way. I quit smoking crack years ago LOL! But over all, no problems with it as long as you know it's limits. Just like every thing in life though right? And I would HIGHLY recomend this gear unit to anyone interested.

RubberDuck

 

How come you can only split the top 2 gears? Their website makes it sound like you can split everything but low & reverse. Is that true?
thanks (considering getting one of these).

 

I can split second and third if I want to. The problem is driveshaft speed. My gear unit won't engage below 20mph. It works off hydrolic pressure. So I could split every gear I have if I could reach 20mph in that gear. Does that make sense? Hell, if I could go 20mph in reverse I could split it too. It's not a mechanical gear unit so to speak. It needs the driveshaft to spin the pump enough to engage the clutches of the unit. So if I had say a 3:07 gear ratio in my rear axle, yeah I could split first gear. The reason I only split 4th and 5th is just my preference. Not to mention, the slower you are going, the longer it takes to engage the unit. So if I tried to split 3rd by the time the unit engages and I let out the clutch, I've already lost my momentum. I hope that makes sense.

RubberDuck

 

it does thanks for the info.

 

Why do the EGT's increase when in double over?

 

Rpm goes down while engine load stays the same. The same amount of HP must be generated to keep the truck in motion, it just has less combustion events to do so now, so more fuel is injected per combustion event to keep up.

 

so do you need guages to run an aux. trans? (truck is not modded).............yet.