Maxi Drive now make 49% reduction gears

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ShaunP

Guest
Guys if anyone is interested
MaxiDrive Australia now make 49% low range reduction gear as well as their their 30% gear for the LT230. It's $200 dearer ($1718 AUD) and requires a little more clearancing in the t-case. The first set went in their own vehicle on the weekend and there are a couple of sets available with more to be heat treated.
 
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Electro Gremlin

Guest
Do they sell that as a complete transfer case assemby or is that just for the gears to put in the LT230?

I think Great Basin Rovers sells them here for @ $2,000.00 US with a $500.00 core charge. I'd love to have it (even just the 30% low-range redux) but that's a hell of a lot of money if it's just for the gears.

---Norm
 
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dirtydisco2

Guest
Mal has had 30 sets cut and 6 of those heat treated. The first set went in his vehicle on the weekend, only driven up and down the road. A couple others are being exported and I think he said he still has 2 currently available. He hasn't advertised this yet until he knew they would work. He was going to do a 40% but it worked out easier to do the 49% gears. He says they're a touch noisier than the 30% reduction gears that he does. The price is aussie dollars and you send him your intermediate shaft for him to set up. It's extra if he supplys the intermediate gear. The gear is 184mm dia. compared to 181mm for the 30's so a touch more clearancing is needed. He says the that the thinnest part ends up a thumbnail sized area about 3mm thick in the indented area of the t-case.
 
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ShaunP

Guest
Electro Gremlin said:
Do they sell that as a complete transfer case assemby or is that just for the gears to put in the LT230?

I think Great Basin Rovers sells them here for @ $2,000.00 US with a $500.00 core charge. I'd love to have it (even just the 30% low-range redux) but that's a hell of a lot of money if it's just for the gears.

---Norm
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The current exchange rate is about .76 I think AUD to US so that means these gears are about $1300 US I guess.
 
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Electro Gremlin

Guest
So, I take it that Maxi-Drive is just selling the redux gears at that price ($1300 in Oz, $2000 in the US) and not the fully assembled transfer case with their redux gears installed.

I e-mailed Maxi-Drive a few times about selling me their 30% redux kit direct to me in the US and they never responded, so I assume they've got GBR as their exclusive US distributor.

$2,000.00 + a $500.00 core charge for a set of gears sure seems like a lot of dough for a gear set. Not sure why they'd want to charge $500.00 for the return of a set of used stock low-end gears -- you could probably buy an entire LT230 at a salvage yard for that (or less). Plus you figure the labor to put it in.

I don't know, it would probably be worth it if they sold you the entire rebuilt transfer case with their low-end kit installed and warranted it. I'm sure I can get lower gearing in the diffs and achieve much the same effect for a lot less than $2000 plus labor.

---Norm
 
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ShaunP

Guest
It would seem that GBR have a bit of a mark up if they leave here at $1300 and you guys pay $2k+ and Maxi-drive would be selling them cheaper to GBR than we could by them off the street, looks to me like the mark up is probably around 80% because these gears are dearer than the 30% ones so they will be more than $2k in the US. So I guess if they won't sell to you, get someone here to buy em and send them over, what would frieght be $50.
 
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marc olivares

Well-known member
Apr 20, 2004
3,535
0
lol...what's the deal man, you guys seem to think that Bill is in the business of ripping people off or something?

i actually spent the morning at GBR and we discussed the maxidrive low range setup in detail, as i'm currently assembling the bits to do a 30% in my Disco.
the biggest issues w/ cost is fluxuating exchange rate. he stated that his web site prices don't always reflect the most current pricing on Maxi drive stuff. also there is a great deal of money involved in obtaining intermediate gears, sending them to Mal to have them machined and then shipping them back w/ the additional bits to complete the kit. he also stated that if used intermediate gears were not supplied that Mal would build the kits w/ new parts and the price would change accordingly (dramatically).

at this point Bill (GBR) doesn't have any 49% gears comming any time soon, So those of us in the US will have to wait.
bottom line though, the stuff aint cheap. but you all knew that and if it really mattered, we'd all be driving Jeeps :D
 
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Gordo

Gordo

Well-known member
Nov 19, 2004
1,477
79
Bradenton, Fl
www.floridalandroverclub.com
What Am I Reading

I would hope that everyone here knows what a great guy Bill is at GBR. If you dont then you probably have never dealt with him. I recently spun a pinion bearing on one of my GBR diffs. I wasnt sure what happened but I knew something didnt feel right when the pinion flange was "loose" in the diff. I popped it out and called Bill who built them a couple years back as Ive never done diffs and Im not comfortable setting them up. (Keep in mind that this is a trail toy that gets BEAT and is often in the water, mud, etc so Im not blaming him for it breaking) I was on a tight time frame as I had to be at the FLRC rally as Im VP over there. I shipped it out to him and he took it apart and didnt really see anything wrong at first. When he was putting it back together he noticed the race had ate into the housing. Well time was tight so I told him just use a new housing man and get me fixed. But in normal Bill fashion, he went out and sourced a spacer that would fit perfectly behind the race and was able to rebuild the diff without a new housing. He saved me a couple hundred bucks he could have easily made off me. On top of that, he felt bad as I now had to overnight the diff back to FL so he sent it overnight for the cost of two day. The diff works perfectly and was like a new diff when I got it back. He even removed the damn bolt that I broke off trying to put the Qt Diff Guards on. I think he charged me for three hours plus parts. I will vouch for him anytime. Sure he has to make money but he is FAIR and a great guy to work with. Gordo
 
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Electro Gremlin

Guest
I don't know, $2000 for a set of gears is absurdly expensive. You can buy a brand new transfer case for that much. Are they made of gold or what? I assume it's patented, but is it rocket science that a good machine shop couldn't duplicate for $100?

Even if you figure in research and development, these guys should know that if they sell it for $2000 they may sell 100 units total in the US. If they sold it for $500 (still pretty pricey) they'd end up selling 10,000 (at least) the first year. I mean, how many Land Rovers are there with a badly bleeding LT230? Only 98%? As long as the truck's in the shop getting a transfer case disassembly to fix the leak, why not install a new lower low range for a few hundred bucks? If they don't have the production capacity, they could outsource it to their neighbors in Japan or the UK or the US.

It's a $2000 set of low end gears that makes something as complicated as a $3000 Ashcroft underdrive look like an economically viable alternative.

---Norm
 
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D Chapman

Guest
It's not about Bill being a good guy, or weather or not he runs a fair business. Why are the MD gears 2000.00 and Toyota gears 300.00? Now, who's getting reamed in the arse here?

I would love to have a 30 or 40% gear reduction in Low range, but not for 2000.00. Hell, not for 1000.00.
 
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syoung

Guest
They'd never sell 10K units- How many Discos are modified for going offroad in the USA? Anyone have a guess? Out of those- who goes so far as to mod gear ratios etc?
 
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ShaunP

Guest
I,m Guessing it's a volume thing even at $300 he's not going to sell heaps, most people don't need them and there is not as many rovers as Toyotas world wide, even at $300 I don't need any. Maxi-drive is a small type enigneering shop on the Goldcoast where Mal makes low volume, almost one off stuff like 4 wheel steering, drop axles etc, but does beautifull work. I guess he isn't inertested in mass market stuff, having said that his diffs aren't much dearer than ARBs if consider you get axles and flanges as well. Thing is the gears are $1300 US in Oz and the 30% ones are around $1k, they are $2k+ State side, maybe there is some import duty/ tax as well that bumps up the price.
 
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Electro Gremlin

Guest
syoung said:
They'd never sell 10K units- How many Discos are modified for going offroad in the USA? Anyone have a guess? Out of those- who goes so far as to mod gear ratios etc?
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Well, they sure aren't going to sell 10,000 units for $2000 each.

One thing for sure is that as these trucks get older, there will be a lot more people turning them into off-road rigs or at least using them off-road in stock or near stock condition. But not too many people are going to plunk down $2000 for a '87 RR or a '94 Disco for off-road use and then want to plunk down another $2000 for a set of gears in an LT230. Now if they were priced as high as $500 I could see it. At $500, even the casual off roader (like me) could see the benefit and value of putting in a lower gear set while he's getting the leak fixed on his transfer case anyway. In fact, for the casual off-roader, a lower low-range is a lot more practical with the normal high-range than having to regear the diffs, fit heavier axels, etc., etc. that the hard core guys do to achieve the same thing. $500 is way less than a good winch & bumper set up. I'm sure the vast majority of enthusiests on this board and many others would too -- but not for $2000 just for the gears themselves.

So the field is open for any of you enterprising mechanics/machinists out there...

---Norm
 
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marc olivares

Well-known member
Apr 20, 2004
3,535
0
Electro Gremlin said:
Well, they sure aren't going to sell 10,000 units for $2000 each.

One thing for sure is that as these trucks get older, there will be a lot more people turning them into off-road rigs or at least using them off-road in stock or near stock condition. But not too many people are going to plunk down $2000 for a '87 RR or a '94 Disco for off-road use and then want to plunk down another $2000 for a set of gears in an LT230. Now if they were priced as high as $500 I could see it. At $500, even the casual off roader (like me) could see the benefit and value of putting in a lower gear set while he's getting the leak fixed on his transfer case anyway. In fact, for the casual off-roader, a lower low-range is a lot more practical with the normal high-range than having to regear the diffs, fit heavier axels, etc., etc. that the hard core guys do to achieve the same thing. $500 is way less than a good winch & bumper set up. I'm sure the vast majority of enthusiests on this board and many others would too -- but not for $2000 just for the gears themselves.

So the field is open for any of you enterprising mechanics/machinists out there...

---Norm
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not quite sure you have an idea of how much work is involved in these gear reduction kits.
it's curious why you're so bothered by the fact that it's priced where it is. i can assure you that no machine shop would touch one of these kits for much under what Bills selling them for let alone for $100. if they could be produced cheaply, they would already be on the market. transfer case gear reduction is nothing new to fourwheeling.
the simple fact remains that's it's a supply and demand market, and there will never be the demand in the Land Rover Venue to bring costs down significantly.

also the arguement that "as these trucks get older more people will use them" is a curious one. the fact of the matter is that as these vehicles get older, more people will buy them who can't afford to maintain them let alone do any sort of upgrades.
you want cheap parts buy a Jeep. but please don't get annoyed because you chose to buy a LandRover and the parts cost more
 
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ShaunP

Guest
Mark your correct. These aren't a mass produced thing, Mal has probably machined up maybe a dozen sets or something by hand, hell he only ran the prototype set in his car last weekend. And they won't be turned up out of cast iron from china but some type of strong billet prior to being hardened the billet steel would be worth more than $100. As for costs of making small quantities, I needed to get some stub axles made for an XKE jag race car diff because I kept breaking the factory ones. These are just a bit of steel 200mm long with a spline on one end and a flange on the other the cheapest I could get to made was $700, some race car shops wanted up to $1500.
Maxi- Drive is not some big factory, it's a small family run business owned by a good engineer that loves Landrovers.
 
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Kevin Baldwin

Guest
Just for your info guys, Ashcroft Transmission's in the UK are about to relaunch their bolt-on 'Underdrive' crawler box for the back of the LT230 together with a low-low-range gear set for the same T-Case of around 40% reduction. No prices yet as it's not officially been released yet.

Kev
 
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zeeto

Guest
D Chapman said:
It's not about Bill being a good guy, or weather or not he runs a fair business. Why are the MD gears 2000.00 and Toyota gears 300.00? Now, who's getting reamed in the arse here?

I would love to have a 30 or 40% gear reduction in Low range, but not for 2000.00. Hell, not for 1000.00.
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because everybody and their mother runs low-range gears or dual cases, or both for yotas. Plus you have two companies competing against one another, and then all of the 4x4 shops that are competing with each other for the business. I was able to get my doubler for ~275 and 4.7:1 gearset for ~350 due to a group buy on both...
Once, if they do, start selling I'd assume you'd see the price start to drop a bit, and especially if another company comes out with some...
 
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