@TonyN (cos you don't answer pm's :D )

[wishbone]

Hi Tony,

In a search I read that you have fitted 4.88 gears for your 33's. I was planning to do that as I have them on my 2.4 and can just swap the axle / front diff with my 3.0. (or sell my 3.0's lsd and front diff and get the 4.88's from a breaker..blah blah blah.. )

However I also read a thread where you say the 4.88's give a hit on fuel economy and 4.5's would be better ? (4.88's more suited to 35's ? )

Can you shed some light for me as my surf is not a daily driver, but when used it covers enough miles to make fuel consumption a factor ?

I will be using it in the mountains in Spain / France / Italy if that has a bearing on gear selection.

Cheers,

Good to see you back on the spanners btw.

Rob.

[TonyN]

Sorry, i forgot.

The 4.8's seemed to add 300-500rpms to our 3.0 for the same speeds. I have put the 4.5's back in for now as the 4.8 was a 2 pinion pickup diff and not as stong as surf diffs and I wore it out (to be fair, it came out of a 81' truck, with a million miles on it, then I started hauling Surfs on trailers with it.)

I will be fitting the 4.8 gears to the ARB when I get round to it, but only cos i brought them now. I think 4.56's would have been fine for a 3.0 generally, with the extra power over a 2.4. A lot of our sluggish problems where down to knackered injecters and crap blocking the filters.

But seeing as we do a lot of towing they will be better for keeping the engine cool and less stressed on bigger tyres despite slightly higher RPMs.

The extra RPM's arn't the end of the story though, it needed a lot less go pedal to keep it at motorway speeds, so light throttle at 3500 is probably better then heavy throttle at 3000 for MPG figures.

I'd think the 4.8's would work alot better in a 2.4, 4.8's are recommended by all the big Toyota gear people over the pond, for 33-35" tyres, with their V6 petrol trucks, which have simular torque than a 2.4 but less than a 3.0, even if the have more HP, so it adds up to what I found in our truck.

IMHO, 4.8's would overall be better for your needs, sounds like lots of hills in the trucks future, so I'd rather it worked less hard, even if it used slightly more diesel, or at least the same amount.

Hope this helps, and not to vague....

[wishbone]

Thanks Tony.

I did a lot of searching and read on the US sites about 4.8 / 5.29 's, but wasn't sure as they all have petrols and I thought they may be in their power band at higher revs.

I'll go with the 4.88's.

Cheers,
Rob.