I know there have been a few posts about the Allison swap and I haven't read them all but this may help. I have looked at quite a few Freightliner MT45vans that come with the cummins 5.9 and the Allison 1000. As a matter of fact there is a brand new complete Workhorse chassis on e-bay with a 4 cyl. Cummins and Allison 1000 for sale. Anyway, it's seems as though the swap would be straight forward, no adapters needed just the correct 1000.

 

I would love to have an allison behind my 5.9 I loved the tranny in my dmax's.

 

I will agree with that. I loved my allison. When it comes time for the trans I will be doing the allison conversion

 

The Allison is a good trans. but has it's own problems as well. It's strong enough to handle much more power than a 48re stock and has an extra gear but I can't see the point in spending the extra money for a stock allison and the trouble to get it fitted when you could just buy an aftermarket dodge tranny (goerend for instance) or others and have an even stronger tranny than an allison that bolts right up and will for sure work. Just my opinion.

 

Two extra gears and cruising 75mph at 1600 rpm would be VERY nice. The conversion is expensive, but I imagine doing the conversion with an Allison built for 600+ hp would cost almost 2X as much as a fully built 48re.

 

Upgrade your 47RE and leave the overratted Alison alone. Very expensive conv.

 

any allison will work if you get the correct Cummins bellhousing adapter. a Ally 1000 will work with a SAE#3 bellhousing adapter from what I have heard.

I am contemplating this swap also, but the funds are going to other stuff first.

 

The six gears is the big appeal for me. The whole argument about which tranny can be built to handle more power does not interest me. It's more gears that I want, and better spaced ones.

Shifting may be the biggest problem and requires a special black box. Also, it seems that the Chevy transfer case is used. Along with different starter, mounts, driveshafts, bla, bla,bla. What a hassle! I wonder if the ones used in the Freightliner can be adapted to the Dodge transfer case?

I keep hoping the Aisin will become available for a swap.

Every time anyone brings up the idea of swapping in the Ally there are a bunch of comments like "just build the 48RE". Sheesh.


John

 

alot of people are wondering what the aisin will do. i would rather swap the aisin if it will be a driect bolt up/or even an easier swap than the ally. i want more gears as well. i believe suncoast has a conversion kit for a ally to fit a 5.9. i heard it was very $$$$ though.

 

I am already at 1600 crusing at 75 so the 2 extra gears would probably put me in the low 1000 range! LOL!

 

The way I understand it, the Allison has a higher failure rate than both the 48re and whatever ford puts in theirs. It's not better, just marketed better.

My opinion - if you want more gears, get a new truck with a six speed, or install a Gear vendors OD on the 48re which will give you eight forward gears including double OD.

 

Over $10K... It would be a very nice thing to have for sure... best of all worlds.

Early reports are that the Aisin is one STOUT tranny. More so than the Allison 1000. But at a cost. It is a medium duty transmission with some big parts in it. As a "race" tranny it is not as responsive as the allison because of the mass. In other words it eats more HP to get the power transferred than what we are used to with our "smaller" trannys. That is also why the 68rfe is installed in the pickup versions; economy and responsiveness. The Aisin was specifically chosen for the c&c because of the entry into the 4500-5500 series, it can haul more, tow more and last a lot longer as a fleet tranny. I believe for the heavy towing crowd, it will be the hot ticket. As I have reported on similar threads, a conversation I had with Suncoast indicated the 68rfe is not a candidate for a retro-conversion to the 5.9l. He did not explain why. The Aisin could be done with little problem, but they were not going to pursue it as they had too much r&d money into the allison conversion.

 

I beat the snot out of my last 2 dmax's and never had a problem. I gues I got lucky and had 2 that were built on a wednesday and everyone was sober.

 

I don't think the final drive ratio isn't much different than the 48 RE is it? I think there is a lower 1st gear then better spaced gears. But I think (unless I'm mistaken) assuming that gears 5/6 would just lower cruising rpm is a little silly. The Dmax's aren't cruising down the hwy at 1500 @ 70 mph.

 

http://www.vibratesoftware.com/html_...s.htm#6spdatrn

a link to the gear ratio for the allison tranny