Gear ratio questions??

[purple93ranger]

I read the "read here before posting" and found a lot of answers to my questions. But there was a few that i was still wondering about. So to start I have axle code R6 witch looks like i have 3.73 i am running 33.12.50 right now. The truck has had big tires on it since the day it was new. so my first question is how durable is this rear end, truck has 185000 on it. Was really leaning to a gear swap but it has never gave me any trouble so, if it aint broke dont fix it?
Can i really expect that big of a difference with a gear swap? From the chart on that post it looked like with 33's you should go for 4.56. I'm pretty new to rear ends but that seems like a pretty low gear, or do the tires really offset the gears that much? btw it is has a manual transmission and 4wd.

 

[Explorin94]

I agree with you...if it ain't broke don't fix it. A gear change will definately make a difference in the truck even running 33's. Going up to a 4.56 ratio will probably put your engine and transmission back into the correct parameters for operation like it was when new with the 235 or 225 stock size tires. Now if you do happen to change the gears you understand that this will not increase the horsepower of the engine. It will feel like and the engine and transmission aren't working as hard to turn of the big rubber on the axles. But ultimately it is your truck and you can do what you feel you need to with it, if it is still working fine with no problems I would leave it until a problem occurs and go from there. Also if you change the rear gear set the front needs to be done also so you are looking at double the cost.

 

[purple93ranger]

Good heads up on the front axel, actually had I little more time tonight to do some research found this pretty cool web site to show engine speed with different gear ratios http://www.crawlpedia.com/rpm_gear_calculator.htm
Not sure if I inserted the link right but really good website!

Thanks for the response, i'll take the advice and wait till something goes wrong