Potential ratio change

[SteveC]

Hi all
I'm picking the brains of the club members when it comes to Axle ratios
My WJ came standard with 29" tyres and 3.73 axle ratio's
Currently running 31" but hopefully increase to 32.5" (max fit without major surgery)
1. Is it worth changing the rations?
2. What should I change to?
3. what are the positives & Neg of doing so, what's involved?
3. What make would you recommend

Thanks for answering my questions
Steve

[SteveC]

Anyone know?
Thanks

[Hunty]

Hi Mate

I think your jeep will be fine running 32.5's on 3.73's - I ran 35's on 3.21's for a year and didn't burn my clutch or feel that I had drastically reduced my crawl speed - I did however pretty much make 6th gear unusable.

Firstly let me ask just a couple of questions;

1. if you had to choose between economy and power?
2. are you worried about loosing your slow low 1st gear crawl speed?
3. are you concerned that in hi, 1st gear will be too tall and starting on a steep hill will be a clutch burner?
4. are you worried about fuel economy?
5. are you worried about placing extra stress on your diffs uni's, drive shafts, CV's etc

it is true if you don't change the ratios and increase wheel diameter that you will place more stress on the drive train and you will have a slightly faster crawl speed

If you change to 4.1's you will get more "Power" and a lower 1st gear crawl speed also you will run higher rpm @ 100kph and probably loose a small amount of economy.

in my opinion your jeep will be fine to go to 32.5's with 3.73's, I believe that the massive expense you will have to pay to get 4.1's will produce very little benefit in extreme off road use - what I'm saying is you would really have to want a slightly slower crawl speed pretty bad to justify the huge expense.

If you were installing lockers at the same time then that would affect my comments re expense as I doubt the labour charge to install lockers and new gears would be significantly higher than just installing lockers.

feel free to call me - I would be happy to talk with you about the pro's and con's

These are pics of my 3.21's - I replaced them with 4.56's and put in ARB Air lockers

http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/ashunty/difx.jpg
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/ashunty/reara.jpg
http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv217/ashunty/front30d.jpg

[Hunty]

I was going to put the 3.21's up for sale but wisely didn't - having thousands of jeepers calling me 24/7 to buy these most sought after ratio's would drive me insane LoL so they sit in my shed just incase I ever need to put them back in. :)
Cheers Hunty

[Steve F]

With the v8 not such an issue just make sure the auto has a good cooler on it as its the auto that will overheat and have issues.

Cheers
Steve

[TRBN8R]

I am running 285/70/17s which roughly translate into 32.7 on 3.73 for a couple of years now and have no troubles at all. It actually came with 255/75/17s which translate into 32s with those ratios... Although it is a JK (Different Jeep) but with the V8 in ur Jeep I dont think there will be much trouble..... Like Hunty said the minor gains will not justify the cost of redoing ratios......

Mani

[SteveC]

Thanks Guys. I think you have all made very good points, Yes, I think I have spent enough on it already,,,,
Ill just look for a set of second hand 265/70/17's muddies. thus minimising any issues.