Danadj

I recently purchased 02 3500 with 4.10's and can't get used to the high rpms at road speed. I have a 94 2500 with 3.55's and have always been able to pull more than the truck is supposed to. It's pretty scary when I think about the weight I have towed down the highway with the 2500 hence the reason for the upgrade. Two questions are on my mind, 1) any reasons not to change, 2) where to get the best value on ring & pinion sets?

red70ragtop

Randy's Ring & Pinion sells what you would need. You could solve your problem with bigger tires, unless that is objectionable to you.

redruM Hauler

wish you were closer i have 3.55's and want 4.10's

my truck wont pull 20K very well with 34" tires

Danadj

What size tire would it take to make the difference? I don't want to sacrifice over the road handling or create a problem pulling a gooseneck by getting too high off the ground.

HOHN

Since a 4.10 axle ratio is 15% "lower" than a 3.55 ratio, you'd need a tire that has 15% fewer revs per mile. For example, if you run a 265 tires that has about 655 revs per mile, then you'd need a that has about 98 revs per mile less.

This is a tire around 36"-- too big imo.

But you can go to a 315 tire around 600 revs/mile that is roughly the equivalent of a 3.75 ratio coming from a 4.10

Justin

need12v

Coming from someone who swapped gears a little over a year ago, I would put some 315's and a leveling kit on it and see how you like it. These trucks look sweet with big tires under them and the ride improves, IMHO. Your Auto trans also has a lower OD ratio than the manuals offered, and if you did swap gears and then wanted bigger tires down the road, you could possibly wind up cruising too low in the RPM range.

A leveling kit is MUCH easier to install than swapping gears in a dana 60 and 70.

When I did my swap, I bought used ring & pinions, and bought full install kits from 4 wheel parts. I wound up selling my 4.10's on ebay for about the same price I paid for the 3.55's I bought, so the only cost involved was my time and the price of the install kits. Dont forget the case of beer for all your buddies helping. I'm glad I did it to mine, but man it was a job. I stayed up all night one night trying to get the rearend set up perfectly, then tried to go to work the next day and fell asleep at the wheel of my scraper....NOT FUN TO SAY THE LEAST!!!

WestTN

Before I would spend that kind of money for a ring & pinion change, I would look into a GearVender over/under auxilliary trans. Then you have several different ratios available. Gear splits can solve most any towing desire.

Danadj

I like the idea of the auxilary but I have not heard of this being done anywhere on this site. Maybe just haven't looked hard enough. Thanks HOHN for the math class on tire sizes. I don't think the 315's would be too large for hitching to a gooseneck so I'll look into that as well.