Transfer Case Upgrades?

[nagal]

Once I get my steering all set-up I want to look at doing a belly-up skid plate. I am trying to avoid is doing upgrades that I will later just be throwing away.

As I see it my choices will be:

1. Upgrade NP231 with SYE for the belly-up
2. Atlas II (tons of money I don't have)
3. Flipped Dana 300

I am leaning towards the flipped D300 because I can do it in stages if needed. Get it now flip it and install 4.1 later.

I am sorry if this does not make sense, having a hard time getting my thoughts around this.

What is my best route to go on this knowing that I want to go to 35" tires and 4.1 in the future.

[Old Fart]

What are you trying to accomplish with the tcase? Need to be geared lower now based on experience, or ?????

You're starting to get into an area that's expensive - and REAL expensive if/when you find you should have gone a different route.

Lots of different options out there, you've listed some.

If you can - drive a similiar rig to yours (transmission, gearing and tire size) with the options - then decide. That kept me from a 4:1 in my 231.

In my case - it's going to be a complete swap (Trans, Tcase) - I'm going to a 4 speed (T-176) and an NP-205 (which I've twin sticked)

Oh yeah - there's a Klune 'tween them.....

[nagal]

My goal is to do a belly-up skid plate which means I will need a new drive shaft. Since I will have to get a new drive shaft, it might as well be a CV drive shaft. This also means I will need to do some kind of mod on the tcase.

Knowing that I will probably want to go to 4.1 Lo sometime in the future (so far I have not seen the need for it but I like to keep my options open when possible), I am trying to figure out what my best route will be with the least amount of money waste.

Does this help clarify my delimea?

[rick]

The items at risk between the above options are your driveshaft lengths and an SYE... I wouldn't spend $2500 on an Atlas at the same time as all the other upgrades (unless you have the $) if the only thing you would be losing by deferring this mod to later is retubing a couple driveshafts (~$100) and an SYE (~$250) that could be sold for a decent price later... The first thing you need to decide is if you need an Atlas or just 4:1. The D300 is a good tcase, but keep in mind that it does not have 32 spline outputs like the Atlas and if you want it to have (most) of the strength of an Atlas you will be spending ~$1400 on the 4:1 kit and output shaft upgrades, as well as several days of work to rebuild the tcase with all that stuff in it. I have not done the flip, but I can imagine it is going to be much more involved (read: PITA) than swapping in an Atlas. I did install the JB Conversions LoMax 4:1 gearset in my Dana 300. See here: JB Conversions LoMax Install

So, if you are going to do primarily moderate SoCal wheeling with 35s, do you need an Atlas, or is a 231 with Tera 4:1 kit good enough? I personally don't like chain drive tcases. Period. However, there are many folks out there with this setup that (as far as I know) don't have any problem with it. Igofshn has the Tera kit in his 231 and he's been through many places, including the Rubicon and JV. I wouldn't do it every weekend or you'll probably be sorry, but you need to know what you want to do with it. If you're going to do any tcase swap, then you need to either do it all at once with the belly up mods or you're going to be hocking an SYE and retubing your driveshafts later. Whether that is a problem vs spending all the coin at once to do it right the first time is up to you.

[nagal]

Rick - thanks for your input tons of great stuff there.

I don't need an atlas but it is an option. I also do not like chain drive transfer cases. My current wheeling does not reflect what I probably will want to do, so some mod become very difficult to make a decision on. Currently the NP231 is fine. Flipping a D300 will be a PITA, I can just feel it. I read your article on LoMax and will probably read it a lot more. From my previous research, if I go with a D300 it will have LoMax as the 4.1 upgrade.

It sounds like I need to stop getting mod happy and save up on this one and do it right once. I know my wife will be happy to see a bunch of boxes starting to stack up again like with the axle upgrade

Now to clean up the shed and make room for a D300 to build up... I think, still not 100% sure.