OK, long story short.

Scored a 78 F250 with HPD60 and 4.10 gears - gonna be my tow rig. Also have HPD44 and a spare FFD60 rear from a wrecked 79 F250, 3.55 gears.

I'm going to rob the HPD60 for my buggy project. So I'll swap the D44 into the tow rig. Cheapest option would be to leave the D44 as-is, and regear the rear of the tow rig with the spare set of 3.55 gears.

The other option would be to leave the rear of the tow rig 4.10, and pony up for a set of 4.10 D44 gears...a potentially $400-500Cdn option (by the time you're done with all the bearings and new gears and all)! Mail order used gears can be risky, and I dunno if I want to take that risk for my tow rig?

So, will I hate myself for upping the gears in the tow rig to 3.55? $500 worth of hating myself?

Nah,

east coast no giant mountains, no high altitude power loss I go with the lowest available. keeps the revs down the the gas mileage up.

Ron

Well, hard to say since ya didn't mention your engine size or what size tires you plan to run. Assuming at least a 351 or 400 & up to ~31" rubber, you should be okay with the 3.55's. Up to 33" rubber if 460. Give or take.

TEX

It depends on how much weight you want to tow. On my '95 Chevy Xcab Dually 454/ 4L80HD 3.73s to tow the max rating for the truck Chevy says I need either 4.10s or 4.56s.

Here's the rig:

http://www.rightcoastcrawler.com/billaVista/Tow_Rig/Tow_Rig.htm

400m and an NP435

I'm not sure what size the tires are - prolly something like 31" or so.

Not sure what the weight will be...imagine a YJ frame on top of an RC60/D70/351/T-18/ORD Doubler with an Aluminum Land Rover Series II body on top, sitting on a car trailer???

I'd guess with the 400 3.55 will work ok. Won't have the power in top gear compared to 4:10's so you will downshift a bit sooner on the hills. If you go larger than 31's you will want lower gears for sure!

Jason :)