You can do a search here on the OD/aux units; they're rather pricey and I'm not sure if they're compatible with exhaust brakes (may or may not apply to your truck).

Some other options include the purchase/install some lower gears or find someone unhappy with 4.10's to possibly trade diffs with?

 

US Gear underdrive would give you ~20% reduced thereby making an 3:73 into a 4:56 gear ratio or 5mph to 4mph. Good but not not great. I think a x-fer case out of a 4wd would be as cheap as a US gear & give you a much lower ratio than 20%. You could probly even use the shorter driveshaft from the same donner truck to further save $$$. I know that the people that put the '2wd low kit' in their 4wds love them for spotting trailers. I know I could of used it a few times spotting my 8 ton equiptment trailers.
I don't think there would be a clearance problem in the 2wds. Maybe someone here knows.

Now you got me thinking about it.

later db

 

I agree. Put it into reverse and it moves right along a little too fast. Maybe they should start installing 2 or 3 speed reverse gears. Perhaps some day we'll have a tractor-like tranny, 12 forward gears and 12 reverse gears, all clutchless.

Do the underdrive's work in reverse?

 

Just last nite had to back stock trailer up tight 6-700 ft driveway (gravel ) just popped it in 4 low worked great. But pavement can be issue. db ? you say you can convert to a 2wd low range ?

 

What if you slightly engaged the emergency brake to help move you along a little slower? I wonder if that would kill the engine....

 

This wouldn't work, because the engine automatically provides more throttle so it won't lug. This is one of the beauties of the manual tranny in this rig....zero input throttle starts. You don't even have to touch the accelerator pedal to get things moving....even on a hill...just let the clutch up and off you go.

Another less appealing option would be to remove the front driveshaft, then you should have 2WD Low instead of 4WD low.

 

twoshot

I don't think there is a 2-wheel low kit for the 3rd gens. My off the wall idea was to actually put a 4wd transfer case in a 2wd truck, in essense acting like a 4wd with a 2 wheel low kit installed ,for an extremely low granny type gear for spotting heavy trailers nice & easy (like I could of used last night backing a 36' 5er into a 10' opening & having to turn it in because of no room to straighten it from the main road - took 3 try's!)
Sometimes slow & easy is very nice

db

 

This is an old thread so maybe there's some new info. out there. Has anyone come up with an idea to add low range to a 2wd truck? See my rig in my sig. There have been several times when slow and easy (forward and reverse) with a heavy loaded trailer would have been nice and a lot easier on the drivetrain.

 

Couldn't be that hard to put a Xfer case into a 2wd, especially if it was an electric shift one could it?
Truck frame's the same, tranny's the same after you rem the tail shaft.
So you'd need the case, 4wd rear driveshaft, crossmember (? maybe, or is it under the trans), and the wiring and 4wd switch. Bet you could do it for under a grand easily with used parts. Find a manual shift case and you'd have to cut a hole in the floorboard, but no wiring/switches req'd.

 

IIRC the G56 has a substantially lower 1st/reverse gear than the NV5600...Find a wrecked 05.5-09?

 

yea well i have 2 of them and cant tell the difference if its lower it aint by much. not worth the trade off for the crappy 6th gear ratio