50 mercury rear end or tranny ?

I have a stock rear end ( dana 44 w/ 392's believe) driven by a chevy 350, th350 ******. with the rear gears i feel lkie i am in second gear all the time. Would I be better off changing the rear gears or going to a ****** with overdrive, and if so what ******, or what gears.
Thanks for your help

 

A well built 200R would work good with that rear gear.

 

i would toss the rearend and put something else in with a better gear ratio.. if you want a 9" one out of a 60-72 f100 will work, you just have to flip the pads from top to bottom and space the pads accordingly

 

Thanks for the replys so far. I was thinking of the rear end swap myself. Any thing other than the early f150's that would work

 

No need to swap rear ends. Do a gear change to whatever you want.

 

Tell us more about what other gears work in a stock Merc housing. What other ratio's are there?

 

The Dana 44 was used in a lot of cars, pickups, & Jeeps back in the day. Parts are still available for them but they are no 9-inch Ford for sure (9-inchers were used in a lot of cars & trucks). 57 Ford car is a good one for a Merc but a lot of other ones will work too. You will have to find the rear axle width post on this forum to see a listing of similar types.

The 1951 Mercs used with Merc-O-Matic had the lowest ratios but are not easy to find. Most other ratios were more truck like as in the F1 pickups. Even the 3.92:1 was made to use with the Borg Warner electric overdrive transmissions.

 

If I were to replace the ****** with an overdrive and still keep my 392"s do you think this would be a good combo ? Also which overdrive would work well the 200r4 or 700r4 and please explain why? I understand that the 700r4 will require more mods than the 200r4.

 

Unless you are racing this thing the 44 will work fine. It is going to be easier, faster and less expensive to swap gears. I would say something in the 3:25 range would make a nice cruiser. There have been several threads about calculating RPM/gear/tire size that can give you a better idea about ratio. If you are not going to do it yourself be sure you find someone that does this alot and has all the specilaty tools. Get a quote because the case might be right the second time or it might be the tenth time.

 

I am still on the fence on what to do. I have heard that it is expensive to replace rear gears by someone dependable. wouldn't it be cheaper to get a niner from the yard and it would also be a stronger rear end. Besides having to change maybe the perches would i also have to do something to the driveshaft? the early f150 niners ran what gears?

 

Get a quote on the gears so you can compare. What does it cost to bring home a used 9" and then have it rebuilt? The driveshaft will probably need to be reworked, R&R the perches and rework the brake lines. $? You seem to keep comming back to strength. What are you doing that you haven't shared with us?

 

I have a 51 Mercury with 371 Dana 44 rear-end out of a 1952 Ford PU. I have a 350 GM crate engine with a 700R4. I haven't had the chance to drive it on the street yet, only back and forth over an acre of drive way. It seems to be a good combo. I am going to change the rear-end in the future to 355 gear with disc brakes that I took out of a Ford Explorer. I am in process of getting parts from Jamco for A-arms,Ball-joints, and disc brakes for the front.

 

I have to agree with this kid....Change out the rearend.