front and rear axle ratio swap

[dangerranger10]

Ok so i have a 86 Ranger 4 wheel drive 5 speed with a 2.9L V6 and I use it as my work truck. I mean I'm always pulling a trailer or something with it but I have one problem. The gear ratios in it are 3.45 gears and it is too hard to keep it running without constantly clutching it. I am wondering about putting either 3.73 gears or 4.10 gears in it. I drive a toyota for work that has 4.11 gears and it seams ok. I want the truck to be able to idle around in at least 1st gear without me having to either hold my foot on the throttle or ride the clutch but I still want it to be able to run pretty fast. I run 235/75/r15 tires on my truck also and get about 25 mpg.... i dont want to drop below 20 mpg but i need some better pulling gears........i can drive in 4th everywhere i go as its geared now and i would rather need 5th just as long as i can still go 60 to 65 mpg when needed like on the interstate because i drive my truck everywhere. I had a 92 ford ranger that had the 3.0 but it was about blew up and i could take off in 2nd yet still it ran pretty fast so would that be the 3.73's or the 4.10s?

 

[-Nathan-]

Holy run on sentences batman.

Ok....I would suggest finding an axle with 3.73 gearing. That should give you a little more oomph, while keeping the MPG's up. I would only suggest trying 4.10's if you plan on going to a bigger tire. Not to mention it will be much easier finding 3.73's than it will 4.10's.

Nate

 

[Mac]

With that 2.9 and you doing a lot of towing, I'd go for the 4.10 myself. I had a '98' with the 3.45 gears and it would fall on it's face on the interstate in a slight wind up a little incline.
Dave

 

[AllanD]

Ok so i have a 86 Ranger 4 wheel drive 5 speed with a 2.9L V6 and I use it as my work truck. I mean I'm always pulling a trailer or something with it but I have one problem. The gear ratios in it are 3.45 gears and it is too hard to keep it running without constantly clutching it. I am wondering about putting either 3.73 gears or 4.10 gears in it. I drive a toyota for work that has 4.11 gears and it seams ok. I want the truck to be able to idle around in at least 1st gear without me having to either hold my foot on the throttle or ride the clutch but I still want it to be able to run pretty fast. I run 235/75/r15 tires on my truck also and get about 25 mpg.... i dont want to drop below 20 mpg but i need some better pulling gears........i can drive in 4th everywhere i go as its geared now and i would rather need 5th just as long as i can still go 60 to 65 mpg when needed like on the interstate because i drive my truck everywhere. I had a 92 ford ranger that had the 3.0 but it was about blew up and i could take off in 2nd yet still it ran pretty fast so would that be the 3.73's or the 4.10s?

Back when I was still running a 2.9 engine I was also running 235/75-15 tires... and with 4.10 gears my best mileage was 26.2mpg and I could consistantly get 23-24mpg running locally

And that was running at 75mph acoss pennsylvania on I-80 with my air conditioning on full blast...

So I'd strongly recommend 4.10 gears with your combination.

I DO NOT recommend 4.10 gears with the same tire size if you intend to cruise faster than 65-ish with a 4.0 engine, the 4.0 simply doesn't like cruising faster than 2400-2600rpm, it gets progressively piggier as rpm increases.

the 2.9 seems completely happy cruising even at 3100-3200rpm for hours.

Just avoid the rpm where the 2.9 tends to produce the "cologne drone" at ~2900rpm, either go faster or slower to avoid the noise.

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