3.31 gears at 40,000 lbs gross.
Just to give a bit of a feel for how different gear ratios would behave while towing I locked out 10 then 10th and 9th then added them back again while travelling on a straight stretch of road w...
Forum Discussion
mkirsch wrote:
No confusion about it.
A taller rear gear keeps you out of the overdrive gears when towing, so you are not burning up the overdrive clutches. You use the overdrive gears for cruising empty.
There is no law saying you HAVE to use every gear in the transmission. That's old 3-speed thinking. Remember in those days you topped out at 1:1. There was no such thing as overdrive.
Modern trucks have the horsepower and plenty of gears in the transmission to accommodate taller gear ratios.
But hey, if you want to redline at 5MPH in 1st gear, and turn 2500RPMs at 65MPH in 10th, by all means, get a set of 4.30 or 4.56 gears
Not exactly. You have to cut gears when you have a tall rear gear ratio leaving with fewer gear options when going up hills versus not having to cut gears with a shorter ratio leaving you with more gear options. Since shorter rear gear ratios put less of a strain on the trans, you can tow in the higher trans gears giving your more gears available for when the load gets harder like going up hills.
In the case of the OP, he has three overdrive gears and is still using the overdrive clutch hub in 8th since it is still an overdrive gear. He would have to drop in into 7th at around 2k rpm to get out of the over-drive clutches. For my 6-speed which has 2 overdrive gears, I would have to drop down to 4th to get out of overdrive putting me over 2,200 rpm at 65 mph. Since the shorter rear gear puts less stress on the overdrive clutches, you can use them in more situations when towing versus taller gears without putting as much stress on the trans.
