Transfer Case 101

If you drive a four by four, then you've got one today, Ian and Jessi are talking transfer cases, what to buy and how to make them better. Plus nature against Man and beast as we try to tackle

May

Hill.

That's all right. Now on Xtreme 4x4.

Welcome to Xtreme 4x4. And as I'm sure some of you guys remember not too long ago, we brought in a bunch of axles from the local junkyard to talk about all the models and the benefits of each one. Now, we got a lot of really good feedback from you guys wanting to know more of that kind of information about transfer cases. Today is your lucky day, we scoured the local junkyards and brought in all the popular OEM transfer cases to talk about each model. Plus we'll go over some popular upgrades for them including a couple doubles.

Now, the simplest way to refer to a transfer case would be to call it a power splitter. It accepts power from the output shaft of the transmission and delivers it to both the rear and the front axle and usually a high range of 1 to 1 and a low range of somewhere around 2 to 1 in stock form. And one of the oldest transfer cases we have in the shop today is the new process 205 Ford Chevy and Dodge used this case since around 1971. Now, the Chevrolet versions were passengers side drop transfer cases, which means that the output shaft was on the passenger side of the truck.

They had two different mounting flange, either the circular six bolt or a race track eight that was in the shape of a figure eight.

The Chevrolets had three different input shafts. A 10 blind, a 27 Splint and a 32. The tens were behind the standard shift transmissions. The 20 sevens, the turbo 350

the 30 twos were made it up to the turbo four hundreds. Now this is a Ford NP 205. It is a driver's side drop case, which means obviously the output shaft is on the driver's side.

Now, the nice thing about the Ford set up is that both the output shaft front and rear came as 32 spline units straight from the factory. The GM ones were only 30 blinds. Now, the larger blind count means that the output shafts are stronger, making the Ford case one of the most popular cases to use in a 203205 doubler. Now, the low range in this case is 1.96 to 1 and the overall length just under 14 inches.

Now, the 25 was also available as a divorced unit and a divorce unit is pretty much exactly what it sounds like the transmission and the transfer case were separated from each other and connected by a short drive shaft.

Now, the divorce unit has all the same specs as the direct mo

unit. The OEM

thought that they could go ahead and use the to drive transmission and just go

and mount this unit farther back in the chassis on its own cross member.

One of the benefits of the 205 are the long list of the input flying counts and having the both drivers side and passenger side drop.

The strength of the 205 is legendary because of the gear size and the cast iron housing. It can be twin stick for independent engagement of both front and rear axles.

The drawback, there's only one, it weighs about 100 and 40 pounds.

Now, the new product for all the Chevrolet 205 is this low max 3 to 1 K from JB conversions.

It replaces the stock case with this nodular iron kit and has more internal ribbing all together making it a stronger unit plus it's drilled for multiple clocking positions. Now the gear tooth width is a lot larger, also making the gears a lot stronger

and both input and the output shafts have been upgraded to 32 sp

this is the kind of jewelry I need to make me happy.

Now, the next transfer case we're gonna look at is the new process 203 unit. Now, just like the 205, it came in both Ford Chevy and Dodges. And that's why it has many different input gear spine counts, everything from a 10, a 23 a 27 a 31 and a 32 depending on what transmission it was behind.

Now, this has the same low range ratio as the 2051.96 to 1. But how it delivers the power to the front put is a little bit different. Instead of using all gears, it has a gear gear reduction housing in the front and then a chain drive portion in the back. Now, this chain drive portion is what makes most people stray away from this case because chains have a tendency to stretch and or worse break gears don't do that.

Now, the 203 is sought after by off rotors but certainly not because a very good transfer case. All we're after really is this front range box housing itself.

We can use this range box housing to create what's called the 203205 doubler kit.

Now, the originators of the doubler is off road designs and use this billet aluminum 6061 T six adapter plate where you bolt the range box on the front and then a little short output shaft inside the transfer case and the two

five will bolt onto the back.

Now, this gives you multiple gearing options in stock form. It gives you a 1 to 1 high, a 2 to 1 medium low and it'll also give you a 4 to 1 ultimate low. It's pretty much the most versatile and strongest case you can make by pulling transfer cases out of a junk yard and to show you how easy it is, we're going to build one right now.

The first step to building the doubler will be to disassemble the range box from the 203 case

with the range box cleaned.

The ord doubler plate is bolted up

and the new fill plate installed over the factory PPO cover

to make this the ultimate doubler.

The 205 is completely disassembled and the Lomax 3 to 1 kit put together

using a larger JB conversion gear sets as well as the 32 spine input and output shaft will make this case super strong.

Now, using the low

max 205 kit in this doubler gives us a bunch of different forward ranges. We have a 1 to 1 high range. We can put the range box in low and leave the rear 205 and high. It's gonna give us a 2 to 1. We can put the range box back in high, leave this in low and then we'll have a 3 to 1 or we can package them all together and get a 6 to 1 making this the ultimate doubler using stock transfer cases.

Now, we're not just stopping at the 205. We still got to talk about the MP 2 31 2 41 the Dana 300 the Dana 20 all their upgrades. Plus we got some after market cases for you too.

After the break, the only throttle position on these rigs is wide open rock racing at Mayhem Hill when Xtreme 4x4 continues.

Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 where we have the privilege of building some of the S rigs and traveling the country's most awesome trails. This week, we didn't have to go far just about an hour and a half up the road to find out who would be crowned king of Mayhem

Hill

compared to the rest of the country life in the South moves a little bit slower.

Welcome to

Masters May

Hall

of

Tennessee

hosting their first ever rock race. The Mayhem off Road Park.

That sleepy

image to this

hauler

pa

go to get to the finish line with the fastest time. Both the small and big tire classes had to hit it hard.

We're gonna take some horsepower, horsepower and someone that's not scared. Jason Randolph wasn't scared.

I

screwed up. That's not the first time.

Last the organizers let me take our poison spider build out for a run.

The goal is just to get to the top built to conquer level five raided trails. This course beat us down.

It's just a U joint who's got a spare. You can see I left some paint on it here and I,

I tried to wear some of it down while I disappointed the fans. Paige Phillips did not. I'm kind of crazy

in the small tire class. Paige is one of the toughest, she's not afraid to take it up anything. My philosophy is use a skinny pedal

while her driving turns heads, her age drops jaws. When I go around, people are like, is that a 13 year old girl? I'm like, yeah, most 13 year olds are still riding their bicycles page

is slamming stones in her bright yellow Suzuki. My dad, I drove his for about a year and he got tired of me tearing up. He said so he built me one. I've had it for about a year. It's got 589 gears and a 6 to 1 ratio. Uh It's got 37 five inch tires. I rocks and big locks and it's propane injected. It's like a roller coaster ride. It's just

awesome to be competitive against drivers twice her age

takes a solid rig and sound advice. My dad taught me just to watch my spotter and just listen to everything. He says. He's always there for me at the masters of mayhem. Dad was out front spotting,

he

win.

My dad's job is just to get me through the trail,

making good time. Her first run came to an abrupt end.

Yoke busted,

got the yoke snapped it right off.

I hit a rock and I bounced up and I landed back on my rear tires and I broke a rear yoke. I broke both the ears off of it. Her driving style means they come prepared. I've got a spare drive chef and they're taking it out and they're gonna put another one back in it and I'm gonna try it one more time on her second run. Paige

had game a time of one minute and 57 seconds was good enough for second place.

It was awesome. It was fun. I just gave it all I had and

did the best I could do. She wasn't the only teenager out here schooling the elders. I'm Brandon Prader and I'm 15 years old

class where the rigs are more powerful and the course is tougher.

Brandon holds his own in the big tire division. Hold it wide open point it where we think it needs to be and hope for the best

with his father riding shotgun. He can see a natural behind the wheel. He knows what he's doing. Just leave him alone and let him drive for the seat time. He's got, he does a real good job

finishing a respectable six. Dad wasn't disappointed. Pretty good day. We didn't turn up up, had a good time. We've seen a lot of good friends.

Pretty nice. Anything short of victory doesn't cut it for Brandon.

I guess we'll do some more to the buggy. We'll be back.

Now. We've been to a lot of events and a lot of trail rides and captured some awesome footage, including this roll over right here. This is Jason Randolph in his custom jeep

and a wild ride down the hill.

But what's more impressive here is this guy right there.

That's

not ever one of our key cameraman

now that you were there for that shot and this is his view right here coming at you.

Oh,

Matt, what that feel like, man.

Uh Well, it all happened pretty quick but at first I thought, oh no, I'm going to die and then it got on up there and once it started going backwards, I felt like, well, thank goodness I'm I'm gonna be ok today.

But um for about a second there, I was a little nervous but it, it came and went pretty quickly.

Now, how close did he

come to you?

It felt like this, but it was probably

seven or 8 ft, something like that. I didn't intend for uh you know, I didn't come to him. He came to me, so to speak. So for the rest of the day, I stood back maybe another 10 ft. I think that's a great shot, man. Thank you. I just happened to be there.

Hey,

guys, welcome back to extreme four by foreign or informational show on transfer cases.

Around 1987 Dodge, Jeep and GM started installing the new process 231 to 41. It's a lightweight aluminum case with the planetary gear set that can handle the 2.72 to 1

range reduction. And then there's a chain that transfers the power to the front output. Now, most Dodge and Jeep units are interchangeable because of their six bolt mounting flange that only bolts up one way. Now, a lot of guys will swap out the 231 for an aftermarket case for some serious off road.

But if you wanted to keep the stock case in your truck, there's a few good upgrades to consider like a slip. Y

Eliminator kit will

work this slip you

thank you

to a fixed you like on this unit. Now,

this may look like a cut away version of a stock 231

but this JB conversions 231 HD has all of the possible strength upgrades available from a six P

planetary gear set to a wider chain and sprocket to a 32 spine output shaft. Now, the benefits of upgrading your 231 that you already have in your project, whether it's a daily driver or a dual purpose off road

is that you're going to get all of this strength without making any modifications to your front drive shaft, which will save you some money in the long run.

Now, when we're talking about the Dana family of transfer cases. There's three key models, the 18, the 20

the 300. Now the most popular for off roading is gonna be the 300 that was found in Jeeps throughout the mid eighties. Now you've seen us tear these transfer cases apart before and install every available upgrade from the aftermarket including hardened input shaft, stronger output shaft as well as a 4 to 1 gear set. Now, this transfer case is extraordinarily popular, but it's always had one drawback.

It's only ever been available in a passenger side drop. As you guys know when you're out there hunting for a high pinion ford axle to swap underneath the front of your Jeep. It only comes in the driver's side drop. Now there is an aftermarket kit that will flip this case upside down and turn it into that other drop set up. But there's a better system now and it comes from stack four by four. It basically moves the output on the 300 from the passenger side over to the driver and then changes all the internals inside to work as a driver side drop.

This allows you to run your case in the correct orientation. Gears aren't running upside down and it's just as strong, if not stronger than the original 300.

You may have noticed us talk about the input spine counts on all these transfer cases but not the transmissions they fit behind. Well, that's because any of these cases can fit behind almost any transmission import or domestic. Thanks to companies like advanced adapters

that make the adapter kits the new output shaft for the transmission and even the speed sensor rings.

Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 and our transfer case 101 show. Now, obviously, we couldn't leave here today without looking at one of the most popular small truck transfer cases out there. The Toyota all gear drive transfer case used up until about 1995. It's similar to the new process 203 and that has a separate range box portion on the front that allows it to get that 2.28 to 1 low range. Now because it has that separate range box. It's popular for a dual case or doubler setup using an adapter like this one from advanced adapters, the range box bolts onto the front and then a second Toyota stock case can bolt onto the rear.

Now, the aftermarket has a whole host of products for the Toyota case, everything from heavy duty housings, low range gears, twin sticks that bolt right in place of the stock set up like these ones from front range off road.

But the downfall of the Toyota case has always been the fact that you could never disconnect the rear output to do a front deck until now

the guys at trail tough products have just come out with a rear axle disconnect specifically for the back of a Toyota case, it will replace the output flange and allows you to disconnect the rear drive, put the front output and low

and do those front digs that we all love to do.

One of the fastest growing items we see nowadays are the aftermarket transfer cases

in the stack four by four cases. One of the newest case assemblies. The big news when it hit the trails was its three speed options with a high a mid and a low range. The case itself is made out of 356 T six thick wall aluminum

and the he

cut gears are heavy duty units with 32 sply

front and rear outputs. Now, the original crate

case is the Atlas two from advanced adapters weighing 100 and 10 pounds with large helical cut gears riding on huge tape roller bearings. It's available in almost any spine count and obviously either passenger or driver side drop. Now, the Atlas two is a staple in professional rock crawling and rock racing teams and the most recent change has been advanced has just released a four speed version of this transfer case with ratios from 2 to 1 all the way up to 10 to 1,

a four speed transfer case. Sounds good to you. This black box from Northwest Fab is a really cool option. It's a planetary reduction housing that fits between almost any transmission and transfer case

and helps you achieve two more levels of reduction

and

thanks to this 2.72 to 1 planetary gear set. And that's all we have for you for transfer case 101. Be sure to stay tuned as all of these cases eventually find homes in our projects right here on Xtreme 4x4.

Yeah.

No.