hi guys my name is arturo and im working on a 1954 chevy pickup. my question is that it has a stock rebuilt diff with low gear on first it has the stock transmission and a 235 engine three on the tree, what do i need to do to the diff or transmission to get rid of the low gear it moves to slow any help please thanks.
Nice truck. http://www.adchevy.com/techtips/t5swap/ Go to the junkyard and find an S-10 with a T5. There are threads here, too.
If the rear end ratio is too low (high numeric...as in 4.56 as an example) changing the trans will be no help at all. You would benefit from a lower numeric rear gear (i.e. 3.55 or so). Alternatively, you could swap in an overdrive manual transmisison, but likely would require changing the rear axle, or center section, anyway....as I recall the '54 is still a torque tube driveline. Ist design '55 and 2nd design '55 and later could provide an open drive differential and retain most of the rest of stock parts, but these may not have the needed gear ratio. I think Patricks has replacement gear sets that would address your problem. Ray
Yes there are aftermarket gear sets available that will allow you to improve the diff ratio's and still keep the existing running gear in the truck. Something more like a set of 3.5:1 gears will change the nature of the trucks on road performance dramatically.
thanks guys it will be of much help, the truck is a 1954 chevy truck 3100 with a 235 engine three on the tree transmission, im not looking to go 100mph on the freeway but would like to keep up with other cars on the road so this info will help me alot thanks im sure ill find a kit out here somewhere in so-cal if there is anybody in orange county that will help me with fixing this just let me know where when and how much thanks
the Patricks kit mentioned earlier should work for your 3100 http://www.patricksantiquecars.com/chevy_parts.html try Turck and Car shop in Orange also http://www.truckandcarshop.com/index.html good luck
well, i guess it depends on what you want, what you can do yourself or what you can afford... if you can do the work your self. Change the trans to a 5 speed a camaro rear end and your done. if you can do the gear change in the rear end from Patricks then your done for now, but if you want to lower or up grade in the future then you will be less ahead. If your happy with the 235 and it is a good running motor then go 5sp/camaro. you and the motor will thank you. Stovebolt.com has a lot of useful information about the changes you would like to do Check around...research a bit and you will be able to find a combo that works for your truck.
for someone who isn't up to doing this kind of work himself, it's going to get rather expensive to pay someone to do a complete transmission and rearend swap, which is what it really needs. The short term solution would to buy a set of 3:55 gears from Patrick's for the stock rearend, but you really are only going to be doing 60-65mph comfortably with those gears. If that's fine with you, then that is the quickest solution. The best solution is to convert it over to an open driveline and use a modern 5spd transmission with overdrive, usually a T5 from an S10 is used. There are many, many small issues that need to be discussed and understood before taking on this kind of project.
The Jalopy Journal
