I'm not looking for more traction, I have issues with drivetrain binding when turning around. which is why I would like the full time mode. I'd still have the part time locked center for those times I need it. So far I haven't had a problem with traction and I even plow uphill on the steep stuff. The road I plow is about 1.5 miles with 1000' elevation change plus about a half mile of county road to get us out to a road the county plows. It's not a problem when there is a good base of snow and ice but when cleaning up after the snow I'm running on a combination of wet pavement and snow which I think the full time setup would be much better at.

 

Personally I'm not a fan of factory limited slips at all in snow. The worn out one in my 200K mile F-250 is still tight enough that it tends to cause the back end to slide out when coasting around corners on ice. The worst of both worlds: the traction of an open diff with the stability of a spool.

The problem with a lunchbox locker in this case is that you need an open diff carrier to install one. So by the time you get an open diff, install it, and install a lunchbox you are at the cost and difficulty of installing pretty much any diff. For a plow truck rear I'd use a Truetrac, But a full carrier automatic locker (like a Detroit or Grizzly) wouldn't be a bad choice either. And some people really like selectable lockers (like an ARB, OX or e-Locker). Then again, keeping the factory limited slip and being glad that it's so worn out that it doesn't hurt stability much isn't necessarily a bad option either.

 

He can correct me if I am wrong, but I think some of you guys are missing his objective. I believe he is complaining about the manual transfer case he has now because of all the hopping/creaking from the truck and moaning from the power steering system when he is plowing in 4x4 and is on dry pavement. Been there, done that, it happens all the time especially after the storm during mop up operations when the sun has melted what you pushed yesterday to "get through" the worst part of situation, and you go back to fully clean the parking lot or whatever. He wants a transfer case with the differential inside it, so he can put it in that mode and it will be more friendly pushing on dry pavement.

With the weight of the plow on the ground, I wonder how the power would transfer to the 4 wheels? It might be interesting. With the plow up, I am pretty sure most of the power would transfer to the rear wheels and they would spin when the going got tough. But it may be different story with the plow on the ground.

 

You're correct Franklin, that's the exact problem. I think most of the time the open center diff would be fine but as you say when the going gets tough I could just lock the center because if it's slick enough to need the center locked I doubt it'll bind up then.

From what I've found so far, the T19 has a stick out of 6.5" where the GM version of the NV4500 has a 6.675" stick out, that should work if I can just re-drill the pattern on the T19 bell housing with a .125" spacer, If the pattern on the NV4500 is to wide to go on the T19 bell housing then the Dodge version of the NV4500 has a stick out of 7.625 so I could make an adapter that's 1.125" thick and find a clutch to work. From my reading the 242 either fits the NV4500 or is easily adaptable.

This might just turn out to be feasible.

 

The only way to get a np242 in your truck without having custom adapters made would be to swap an NV4500 transmission in your truck ( there is also some 4 speed manuals that will work) along with an adapter kit from advance adapters to adapt it to the 23 spline input. The adapter is around $300 then you would most likely have to have custom driveshafts made. The np242 is a good case I have one in my Jeep but it would be expensive to make it work in your truck.

 

OK, thanks, I have not operated a transfer case like you're looking at. I was thinking if you had more traction then you could go to 2WD.

I'll have to look into and hopefully try one of those so I can learn about it. That's a lot of plowing with elevation!

 

Pretty much all my reading has led me to the same conclusion, Looks like the longer Dodge input shaft with a 1 1/8" spacer/adapter would make the NV4500 fit on the T19 bell housing, then just find a clutch disk and TO bearing and adapt the pilot bearing. I don't think the T19 bell housing is wide enough on the mounting face to accept the NV4500 bolt pattern or I could just bore the bearing retainer flange hole bigger to match the NV4500 and bolt it up.

I didn't find any adapters to fit anything on the ford 6.9 so I think this is the best approach so far. I've found a couple bolt pattern drawings for the T19 and the NV4500 but none of them reference the crank/input shaft center-line in the measurements so I'll either have to get a tranny to measure or get lucky and find one for both trannys.

Thanks
for all the input guys.

 

Do not know if it will help any, probably not. But the 6.9 and 7.3 idi engines are international built engines with their own oddball international bellhousing pattern. Ford made a bellhousing adapter to adapt it to another oddball pattern they dreamed up, way to go Ford. So there is actually an adapter on your engine already. Why they did not adapt it to a 460 pattern I will never know. But, they also make an adapter for these engines to a SAE pattern. This is a big truck pattern, and you can find these adapters on school bus engines, u-haul engines, and these engines when they were in dump trucks and other heavy equipment.

 

That is a good question on why they didn't use an existing bolt pattern, who knows what drives that kind of decision. So far I haven't found any references to the NV4500 being used in bigger trucks, not a lot of info that I've found about application other than Chevy and Dodge pickups. The grand kids go home today so I can continue searching.

 

I believe some school busses used the nv4500 but I am not sure what engine was in them.