Looking for opinions........or options

[markelectric]

I do some seriously heavy towing with my 94 3500 crew cab 4x4. Thanks to Bill Heath and whole bunch of you guys I can pull those loads with reasonable comfort. My problem is I have six trailers loaded with the needed stuff for this job. That means pull a load to, deadhead back five times, pull a load to and back once and deadhead out and pull a load back five times. this becomes a real pain this comming year due to the trip being about 10 hrs one way loaded. Heres my question, the truck does ok loaded, but seems to be a real waste on the deadheads. could there be a real fast fix for more milage? I seem to average about 10 to 11 mpg on these trips overall and I think I am probably doing about 14 to 15 deadheaded. I have heard about Gearvendors but am scared by the price. I dont need anything that fancy either. Maybe a "manual" type two speed rear end? ( I think mine is a 4.10 ) I wouldnt mind crawling under the truck to shift it, no more than it would need to be shifted.
What do you think? Am i crazy? Just pay my way to Flying J and go on?

[turbovair]

Realistically, you are getting just about as good of fuel economy that I get out of my 96 xcab 2 wheel drive. I get about 16-17 empty and about 11-13 towing.I think you are getting great economy considering the weight of your rig. Me, if I needed to get more economy ,AND more towing power, I'd move up to a more powerful truck as offered by the Big 3 these days.

[moondoggie]

Good Day!

You might want to look at my 21 Aug 03 post in What's your fuel mileage with a load? (http://forum.thedieselpage.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=004439#000014). A Gearvendors will probably never pay for itself, but man does the truck get quiet when I cruise 70 mph @ 1750 rpm.

Blessings!

Brian Johnson, #5044

[cruzer]

This maybe way out there. What comes to mind is the planetary gear case in a NP203 tranfer case and installing it backwards,so instead of reduction it acts like an OD. It would be 1:2 so using actual OD on the trans may be too much, but it might work w/trans in drive.It would effectively change your rear gear to 2.05:1 if you have 4.11:1 now. It might be to high though. The NP203 was used in old GM all time 4 wheel drive trucks. The case itself w/o the chain housing is probably 6-8"
thick. It was installed on the back of auto trans's maybe the splines match. Just a penny pinching thought.
What gears are in the gearvendors?

[Marty Lau]

Two things I might suggest and they are low cost to increase MPG's.
1. SLOW DOWN. MorePower used to preach early on that for every 5 mph you drive faster your MPG drops 1 mpg. So if your dead heading at 75mph you should pickup about 3 mpg at 60 mph. Now that will add about 2 hours to your trip back. On a 750 mile trip 15mpg vs 18mpg saves about 8 gallons. 2 hours vs 8 gallons is it worth it too you?

2. I was at Gomers Diesel the other day and they were pushing the Stanadyne Preformance fuel additive. The info they gave me indicated a 10% increase in fuel ecconomy. I have a buddy who had a '94 3/4 ton with 4.10 and he swore it did give him 1.5 to 2 mpg better. Plus they claim if used per dirrections it will prevent gelling of number 2 to -60 degrees F.

I use Power Service.

[moondoggie]

Good Day!

I think my Gear Vendors is a 78% OD: 1:1 when it's out, 0.78:1 when it's in.

Blessings!

Brian Johnson, #5044

[markelectric]

On this topic there is no "way out there". Let the ideas flow........