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A few days ago I bought a 1988 Samurai with a SPO, 29x8.50 TSL's, locker in the rear, otherwise stock. It's fairly clean for this area with just some rust on the bottom of the fenders and a few soft spots on the floorboards. It has some miles on it, 178,000, and the motor is burning oil. Last night I bought a Tracker with a 5 speed and a 8 valve 1.6 for a doner motor.
The plan for this rig is for it to be a driver and occasional wheeler. I have my crawler for hard stuff, my Jetta as a DD, and my truck for 4x4 DD and tow pig. I enjoy driving on easy trails and just sightseeing sometimes, and I always thought sammi's were just cool to begin with. I am going to cut the bottom 2 or 3" of the body off to get rid of the rust, then give it a nice paint job with some tube sliders for protection and to cover in where my cuts were. I want a stock appearance for the most part.
The thing that has been running through my head right now is what to do about the transfer case(s). The two options I am considering is use the tracker motor, adapter plate to my trans, with 6.5 transfer case gears. The other one is tracker drivetrain with a Dana 300 doubler. I have a dana 300 in my garage that needs a home.
The 6.5 gears with my stock axles would cost around $700 after the adapter plate. It would give me a crawl ratio of 87:1 and a high gear ratio of 5.9:1. That puts my crawl ratio right where I want to be, but I worry that 5th gear would be too high. It would, however, be easier and allow me to keep my rear locker.
The dana 300 doubler I found is $600 to use the tracker case. I would still have to buy/make mounts, yokes, and twin stick stuff for the 300. With this option I would use the tracker rear axle and put the tracker center section in my front, giving me 5.12's. I would have to buy a locker for the tracker rear, unless mine can be used. I haven't found anything saying it can or can't. This option would give me a crawl ratio of 86:1 and a high gear of 4.04:1, plus the mid-low range that I didn't do the math on.
Stock, what I have now, is a crawl of 30.8 and a fifth of 4.12. I currently can barely use fifth gear except on the downhills, but I have a worn out 1.3 instead of a fresh 1.6. When the 29's wear out I will probably buy 31's, but they are brand new so it will be a while.
Sorry for the long post, I'm trying to answer questions I can think of before they are asked. I didn't do the math on 5.12 gears and stock t-case gears, I think that would give me to low of a high gear and too high of a crawl ratio. I looked at some builds of a tracker-sammi doubler, that would give me a 55:1 crawl and a 4.12 high. For the same work I'd run my dana 300 I think.
Thanks for the advice. I want to get this right the first time and not regret the route I take.
The plan for this rig is for it to be a driver and occasional wheeler. I have my crawler for hard stuff, my Jetta as a DD, and my truck for 4x4 DD and tow pig. I enjoy driving on easy trails and just sightseeing sometimes, and I always thought sammi's were just cool to begin with. I am going to cut the bottom 2 or 3" of the body off to get rid of the rust, then give it a nice paint job with some tube sliders for protection and to cover in where my cuts were. I want a stock appearance for the most part.
The thing that has been running through my head right now is what to do about the transfer case(s). The two options I am considering is use the tracker motor, adapter plate to my trans, with 6.5 transfer case gears. The other one is tracker drivetrain with a Dana 300 doubler. I have a dana 300 in my garage that needs a home.
The 6.5 gears with my stock axles would cost around $700 after the adapter plate. It would give me a crawl ratio of 87:1 and a high gear ratio of 5.9:1. That puts my crawl ratio right where I want to be, but I worry that 5th gear would be too high. It would, however, be easier and allow me to keep my rear locker.
The dana 300 doubler I found is $600 to use the tracker case. I would still have to buy/make mounts, yokes, and twin stick stuff for the 300. With this option I would use the tracker rear axle and put the tracker center section in my front, giving me 5.12's. I would have to buy a locker for the tracker rear, unless mine can be used. I haven't found anything saying it can or can't. This option would give me a crawl ratio of 86:1 and a high gear of 4.04:1, plus the mid-low range that I didn't do the math on.
Stock, what I have now, is a crawl of 30.8 and a fifth of 4.12. I currently can barely use fifth gear except on the downhills, but I have a worn out 1.3 instead of a fresh 1.6. When the 29's wear out I will probably buy 31's, but they are brand new so it will be a while.
Sorry for the long post, I'm trying to answer questions I can think of before they are asked. I didn't do the math on 5.12 gears and stock t-case gears, I think that would give me to low of a high gear and too high of a crawl ratio. I looked at some builds of a tracker-sammi doubler, that would give me a 55:1 crawl and a 4.12 high. For the same work I'd run my dana 300 I think.
Thanks for the advice. I want to get this right the first time and not regret the route I take.