I was planning on either putting a 4:1 kit in my d300 or putting it behind a crawl box this winter when I do a motor swap. It's got a 258 with a 14 bolt and a 60, next spring it will have a TBI350 and th400 and I'm gonna trade the 39.5s out for some 42s or 44s.

This was untill we were riding about a month ago and a guy we were with (Bigsilly on here) chipped a few teeth off of the intermediate gear in his d300 (hd rear output, stock low range). He wasn't beating on it or bound up or anything, just bouncing along in front of me. I'm trying now to figure out how common this is. I can't think of any way that it would be due to bad setup or something in the case unless he had some needle bearing some where SEVERELY worn out, allowing one of the shafts to deflect enough that the teath just caught by the tips. So it is either a fluke, or the intermediate gear is the next weakest link behind the rear output shaft, or his case was just worn out.

So my question is which was it, how many have done it or seen it happen. I was ready to put some money in to this case but if this is real common then I guess I will look towards a stak or atlas instead.

ive blown a couple sets (2.6:1 sets), but it was ALL the gears on the low side. i have the 32 spline input and outputs. this is in an under 3000# buggy with a 4.3 chevrolet. ive broken two cases as well. however, i will say that the gears/cases take a beating before they go. JB gears will be the ideal choice for your 4:1 set, and the new stak case will be out in about 6 more weeks. hopefully this new case will be my hot ticket, and i even plan to try it on my ls1 in the next chassis. i cant fit an atlas or stak in my current chassis, thats why i keep giving so much faith in the 300. the stak case will have solved my case breakage issues.

dont give up on the little 300's yet! :cool2:

jeremy

If It just wore out thats ok really...even a stak/atlas is going to break eventually if you beat on it long enough...I just am trying to figure out if this happens enough to be considered a "weakness"...anybody else?

anything could be "considered" a weakness...

i honestly think you will be alright. give the thing a good rebuild. put new bearings in there and keep fluid in it, and they will go the life of the rig. there are tons of guys running heavier jeeps with v8's, huge tires; and a lot of them have some form of reduction box un front of the 300 and seem to have no complaints. like everything in this sport - it all depends.:)

jeremy