[Staowners] my rear end - need to change it - HELP!

[starcars8 at comcast.net]

Ray, I would think, on the face of it, that the 3.99:1 Alpine rear end would be ok for your Toyota setup. You say you Rarely get into fifth gear. You don't say at what road speed you are attempting to engage fifth. Bearing in mind that fifth gear is an overdrive you would need to be travelling at  fifty mph + to be able to cope with that tall a gear. Fifty was the recommended minimum speed to engage a factory  installed Laycock de Normanville overdrive. If this is what you have been doing then a shorter gear would, indeed ,be necessary. OOPs forgot ,short and tall gears is mechanic talk for low and high gear ratios. Also it may help to know that the rear end ratio of 3.99:1 means that the pinion, the part driven by the prop shaft, needs to turn 3.99 times to get one revolution of the crown wheel, which transmits the drive to the wheels. So the higher the number the lower the gear ratio. Hope this helps.   Pete
-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: raymead at comcast.net 

Hello all,

As most of you know, my '54 Alpine has a 1984 Toyota 22R
engine and 5 speed transmission in it.

It has the original 1954 Alpine rear end.

Because of the gearing of the rear end, I rarely get into 5th
gear with this engine/transmission set up...............

So, was thinking that I need a lower set of gears in the rear end.

Being mechanically challanged, I will, of course, have someone else
do this - BUT, the real challenge I suspect is figuring out what set
of lower gears would fit and what car/year they would be from............

Can anyone out there answer this?

tks, ray
'54 Sunbeam Alpine
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From: raymead at comcast.net
Subject: [Staowners] my rear end - need to change it - HELP!
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