Any positive experiences with Prepped Overland in Oregon City? Re-gear Services

Hi Oregon friends,

Just wondering if anyone has any reviews of Prepped Overland in Oregon City, specifically reviews of their re-gear services, to speak of?

Wanting/needing to get my front diff re-geared after a bit of a saga re-gearing my rear.

Also open to other Oregon/PNW shops aside from Das Mule, who gave me a ridiculously high quote and came off as cocky asshats about it all over the phone.

Thanks!

 

Can you share what you’re paying? I asked a shop in Tualatin and they were wanting $4200 (!?!) outrageous…

 

Was it Das Mule? They're in Tualatin and quoted me the same. I told them ECGS was half the price and they refused to believe me and made a big deal of not honoring their warranty unless I brought my truck in (I asked about just bringing them my diffs in a bucket).

ECGS was awesome to work with on my rear diff (and about $1000 door to door) but UPS completely fubar'd the packaging when I received it so I'd rather not ship again and shop local if possible.

 

I was planning on ECGS and sending my diffs in, maybe I need to consider the possible shipping problems… but it was Adventure Overland that quoted me that price.

 

Thanks for the heads-up on Adventure Overland. That also seems high so I'll remove them from the search.

 

I got through to Adam at Prepped Overland in Oregon City yesterday. Super nice straight shooter. He said he's likely around $1500 for my front diff re-gear. I asked about supplying my own gears (yup...I'm the royal PITA customer but got some used but perfect OEM 4.30 gears here on TW for pennies on the dollar) and he said he could only warranty his work on the new bearings he would add but not the gears or anything else. Totally understandable.

There's also a guy on Marketplace named Carl that has ads when you search "Toyota Third Members". He's responsive on Messenger and it turns out, he's based out of Sandy, OR at a shop called Allison Power Systems. Not sure how it works but I get the feeling he's a Toyota guy doing re-gears on the side/afterhours. He said labor would be $500 + parts on my front diff re-gear. Allison Power Systems | Industrial Repair and Rebuilding

I'm going to head west next Tuesday with my front clamshell and gears in a bucket. If I get a good feeling from Carl, I'll leave the bucket with him and if not, I'll head over and see Adam. I'll keep y'all posted here. Oregon needs a good, fairly priced gear shop!

 

Funny you mention Carl - I’ve been talking with that guy as well. He has been responding (somewhat) but hadn’t shot a price to me.

 

I'll definitely let you know how it goes! Before I got into specifics with him, he wrote that front diffs are $500+parts and rears are $350+parts if the diff is out of the truck and there's no damage to fix.

 

I'm finally coming up for air after the holidays and wanted to update this thread.

Right after Thanksgiving, I brought my front diff and a used OEM 4.30 gear set over the mountain to Carl Wayne at Allison Power Systems in Sandy, OR. I found him on Marketplace as he has some Toyota 3rd members listed and also says he does custom work.

It turned out to be a clean, legit shop and Wayne (he goes by Wayne, it turns out) seemed to be a friendly, knowledgeable fella so I was happy to leave him the parts.

He got back with me the following week with some bad news, though. Turns out the 2005-2015 front diff carrier is different than the 2016+ carrier even though all of the other parts are the same. Turns out there's a carrier break in those years that he or me didn't know about. After looking more closely at Yukon's site (and a few others), it turns out the 3.73 and 3.90+ ratio front carriers are indeed not the same.

So...work paused while I found a used 3.90+ carrier out of a 2016+ Tacoma. Back to junk yard searches, I found a complete front diff out of a 2019 Tacoma that was listed as 4.30 ratio for $200 but it turns out it was another mislabeled 3.90 (This is the 3rd time now!! Get your shit together Oregon junk yards!). I picked up the diff from B&R in Portland and hauled it over to Wayne. A short time later, he called me that it was all done. He was able to put the used 4.30 ratio gear set onto the used 2019 carrier, add new bearings and nicely reassemble everything along with giving me back a big, heavy box of disassembled parts.

Not sure anyone else would have been as easy to work with in this case or as cheap. All in, his bill came to $717, hundreds cheaper than ECGS and over a thousand cheaper than the other local gear shops. Based on this experience, I would highly recommend Wayne, especially if your regear request is more straightforward than mine!

 

Thanks for the review. Been procrastinating on my regear, not wanting to deal with shipping to ECGS. I’ll add Wayne to my list of people to talk to. Would be a bonus to find someone who would also do my axle seals, I’ll find out if he’s up to that