Regear or not to regear, A M/T question.

This question is for the person with a manual trans. That had steel bumper, sliders, ect. And put on 34 or 35 inch tires and did not regear. Then perhaps decided to regear or maybe decided not to. What was your comparison from before to after and what gears did you go with. I appreciate your first hand experience. Im considering new tires and rear locker and regear but most big improvement s talked about are with auto trans owners. I have w a 32 tire and all the above weight. It is a little sluggish off the start(not horrible). Until I'm in second gear and it seems fine. I thought maybe I won't need to regear and maybe a simple tune would suffice. I hope to find someone who was in my situation to help. Thank you.

 

The tune definitely helps low end power

@95tojo is tuned with stock gears and 35s

a lot of people will regear to 4.88s when they go beyond 33s in the mt

 

Did he have a post about how it drives compared to before?

 

I didn't regear, but I noticed a substantial loss of power going from stock tires to 285s. Went back to stock and my truck drives like it's supposed to.

 

Im planning on doing some occasion offroading so Id like 34s or 35s.

 

I hace 34's and a lot a weight, bumpers winch, sliders, skids etc. M/T with the 4.0 (2nd gen) which has more low end torque and good lord do I need gears off road.

Around town on flat land it's fine, in the hill country and mountains I hunt for gears a little bit.

I plan to go to 4.88's with ARB air lockers in the near future.

But yeah off road without gears and all the weight and tire is a dog.

 

Get gears. 4.88.

 

I was in a very similar situation. Front and rear bumpers, rock sliders, RTT, 32in tires, OVTune etc blah blah blah, I traded the truck in for a new one and the first mod I did was 4.88s. Well, I got 33's then a week later I got 4.88s, but definitely get gears. I would even recommend 5.29's if you don't do much driving in the 75-80mph range. If you do a lot of highway driving at those speeds then stick with 4.88's. If you don't then you're gonna really enjoy 5.29's.

 

Re-gear, you will be glad that you did it. Don't re-gear and you will wish you did. Everything that I lift, with bigger tires, gets new gears. Trust me on this, I have been building offroad vehicles for about 50 years now. Good luck with your truck.

 

On an AT, i totally agree 5.29s. On a MT, I’d only do 5.29s if you have a really heavy truck like @Round the world

 

I didn't think the AT or MT mattered that much. OP, you're better of listening to @Shellshock than me anyways so...

 

The MT is geared lower from the factory and you get to choose your shift points so re-gearing is not as important for daily driving. However, 1st gear and reverse with tall tires can necessitate a lot of clutch use when off-road or towing heavy stuff which is not cool

 

Yes, they're geared lower, but don't those gears come off and get replaced with 4.88's or 5.29's like on the AT?

The clutch use off road makes sense tho.

 

Yes the gears we are talking about are in the differentials not the transmission.

 

exactly

 

Thanks a bunch everyone. I guess regear is the way to go. I'll now decide between 4.88 and 5.29. Thank you guys for your opions. I thought I might get by ok with the factory m/t gearing.

 

Based on the fact that I'm on 33's with little extra weight and I'm happy on stock gears, and when loaded down with camping shit I can still do fine IMHO, with extra armor weight and 35's I'd go with 4.88's simply because you don't have a potato deciding what gear to use unless you are in fact a potato.