Is the M5OD-R2 tranny strong enough for light wheeling and hauling? I've never had any dealing with one, but my grandfather is thinking about buying a truck with an I-6 and M5OD-R2(minus 3rd gear). I will do the swap for him, but I just wanna make sure its worth buying into.
I would say if the truck is going to see any offroad style upgrades, heavy hauling, or any type of abuse, the the smallblock bellhousing ZF-S542 is the way to go. That being said, I had the same combo you mentioned, and the only issue I had with mine was I had to replace the top plate (stole it from a junk truck at work) because it was so worn out after 230,000 miles, you would miss gears and the shifter moved 6" side to side while in gear. Note that that half ton has hauled more than it's share of round bales (3 at one time), scrap metal (1.5 tons), a double bed full of firewood multiple times, etc, and the tranny never broke.
I have a smallblock ZF for sale with 80,000 miles on it if you want it. PM me if interested.
The hard part about a ZF swap in that truck is finding the ZF, it's 100% bolt in, and the ZF is dimensionally identical to the M5OD.
If the M5OD is indeed junk, do the swap. But, it's entirely possible that you just have shift tower problems, and that's not too bad a fix, you just have to put up with the M5OD's not so great ratio set.
Small block zf are hard to find at least around here but we have a 97 150 w/a4bt in front of a m5od trans still holding up fine 40,000 sense swap but have aspare on the floor just wating for the day it goes boom
I have seen $500 cores and $800 for a wrecking yard ZF5spd! Get it fool! If it actually is a ZF........................They don't know what they should be asking for it.
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