Gears & Lockers

Gears and Lockers Services

If you’re new to four-wheeling, then you’ve probably heard about changing gears and adding lockers. If you pictured shifting your transmission with locking boxes in the bed, that is not what we are talking about. Four-wheeling gears and lockers can change your truck from zero to hero, as much as suspension and tires. When building a 4x4 that is outfitted with larger tires, we recommend going to a different gear ratio, as it will assist the engine in turning the larger, heavier tires.

We often recommend going to a “lower” gear, a gear that offers more torque multiplication, similar to shifting to a lower gear in your transmission. However, by lower, we mean a higher numerical ratio. For example, 4.56:1 is considered lower than 3.50:1. Just remember, lower gears are higher numbers. To better understand this, imagine that your engine puts a certain amount of torque into every driveshaft rotation, and the gear ratio multiplies that torque into every tire rotation.

If a single driveshaft rotation is 100 lb-ft, then the lower ring gear of 4.56 now puts 456 lb-ft into turning the tire just once as compared to the higher 3.50 gear, which only saw 350 lb-ft.. Please call to discuss your project.