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syoung said:
Great point. Hence the cost. Shops making custom stuff for Rovers go into it knowing that they have to recoup their costs w/ a minimal target customer base. That's why the same part or mod for a Jeep is less expensive. I'm not defending the gear price, but I'm assuming that it's based on projected demand vs. production/marketing cost ?
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dirtydisco2
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Kevin Baldwin said:
It will fit the Defender but will it fit the Disco? I believe the footwell may be an issue for clearance.
Oh yeah, and on the pricing note I thought Suzuki owners were tight@#$ but man what's going on here? Try and buy some crawler gears for a Sidekick for $500 let alone $300. Finally you guys get to feel a little pain like we do in OZ when we import gear for our rigs. Volume and competition can make a big difference in pricing but at least someone is out there supporting the brand by making quality gear available. Whether you want it or are willing to pay the price is your choice. If you want cheap crawler gears buy a Toyota.
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D Chapman
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If any of us had enough sense, we would all be driving Toyota's.dirtydisco2 said:
I thought the Suzuki's had a 4:1 to start with? Or is that the Samurai?
Hmmmm. I wonder if that Samurai Transfer Case would hook up to a Rover somehow? It's divorced, gear driven, I think the diff's are off-set like a rover, and it's 4:1....Plus, I think KlumV makes a kit for them....Not really my cup of tea, but I wonder if it would work.
syoung said:
Exactly, most mod the diffs if they are locking them anyway. I am not saying the price is unfair, these are practically a one off product. But for me, just not worth the money.
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syoung
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FWIW- I've imported stuff from OZ before and it is SILLY expensive. I bought out a hobby shop and imported their stock and I also brought over a pallet of custom springs. In both cases, the shipping was about equal to the cost of the items I was bringing over.
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Electro Gremlin
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Electro Gremlin
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Nomar said:
As I recall it was around $3000.00 for the Ashcroft underdrive -- considering the complexity of the underdrive, a relative bargain compared to a $2000.00 set of low end cogs. Plus you'd have 4 gear ranges instead of 2, if needed them all, which has got to be worth the extra $1000 to the off roader who wants it all.
I'm just curious -- what parts come with the Maxi Drive low end kit and what makes them so damned expensive?
If you have to pay a $500 core charge, it sounds like Maxi Drive is just reworking some of the (used) stock parts.
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ShaunP
Guest
The cost will be due to small volume and labour. Mal is normally not in the business of ripping us off, These gears would be hand made/machined out off high quality metal not poped out of some factory in China buy the 1000. I reckon he would only be making $100 on them at $1300. If you look on his web site there is picture of a case with some 30% gears in it, gears are new but he does have to modifiy something on of the old gears.
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Electro Gremlin
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ShaunP said:
I wouldn't pooh pooh China too much because they're getting much better at everything all the time.
I can understand that the cost of labor would be high if the guy is doing them one at a time in his little machine shop and he wants to make a decent living from the extremely small percentage of people on this planet who would pay $2000 for a set of low end gears...but don't you guys in Australia have CNC machines?
That's what CNC is for: making precision heavy duty machine parts on a large scale and cheaply. What takes Mal all day to accomplish by hand could probably be done in half an hour on a CNC machine for about a buck a minute.
Although the stock LT230 is probably the most durable component on a Land Rover (leaks and all), they have one major problem -- the low end isn't quite low enough and there's a lot of overlap between high and low ranges. Land Rover could have made them lower, but in their usual "wisdom" they didn't. If you do any off roading at all, you can see that these rigs would benefit from a true crawler gear, especially with the 3.5 and the 3.9 motors. 1st gear low just isn't quite low enough and the motor is just too anemic to haul its own weight.
Believe me, there's a demand for an AFFORDABLE crawler gear, but not much of one for a $2000 set of gears.
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ShaunP
Guest
Yeah we have CnC lathes it's not the back woods, last time I looked we were sending Holden Monaros to the states and GM rebadged them as GTOs and don't forget this is where ARB lockers come from, and Mal would have one, he would turn up the billets on this but I'm not sure what he hobs the gears on, I know they are straight cut, he would be sending them out to get hardened. I'm not sure Mal is into becoming a supa wealthy if he was you blokes would be fitting Maxi lockers not ARBs because him and Jack Mac were making them first. I guess he is happy living on the Goldcoast making a comfortable living doing someting he loves with no stress. Remember to you guys are paying heaps more for this stuff as well. Even so he won't sell many here either. I think we do different stuff to you guys, sure there are guys that rock hop and we have the normal 4x4 comps etc but most people that actually take a car of road here use them to get to a destination like the Cape, the Gulf, Kimberlys etc, there are epic adventures like the Canning stock route where you may need to get fuel dropped in a long the route, infact a couple of ill prepared clowns and their dog died a few weeks back on the Canning when there truck stopped and no one came a long for a couple of weeks to save them Eperb or a sat phone, maybe a HF set is the only contact in the outback if your in trouble. So while the tracks are rough and remote a lot well most of Oz is pretty flat. So a super low gear isn't that important, we also do a lot of beach driving, some beaches are gazetted as highways and have speed signs,cops even book you for speeding. Fraszer island, Morten island and the Great sandy national park are common 4x4 destinations around here. Seldom need low range except some times on track off the beach a bit or if towing boats of campers up the beach. There is a US guy on Disco web that has done the trip to the cape, can't remmeber his name though. There are still places here that us white men have never tread even with 4x4s.
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Electro Gremlin
Guest
Well, if Mal wants to eliminate stress (and make an extra buck or two -- I don't know anyone whose against that) he could probably outsource the whole thing to some company with an idle CNC and spend more time in his LR out in the boonies. The the LR community would have an affordable crawler gear in the LT230, everybody would be happy and the world will be better for it.
If Mal is addicted to his time in the shop, he could start making sculptures out of dead R380 transmissions...I'm sure there are plenty of those down there, might as well do something useful with them. If Mal will make me a $500 gear set, I'll send him my dead R380 free of charge, freight free from the USA.
If Mal is addicted to his time in the shop, he could start making sculptures out of dead R380 transmissions...I'm sure there are plenty of those down there, might as well do something useful with them. If Mal will make me a $500 gear set, I'll send him my dead R380 free of charge, freight free from the USA.
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ShaunP
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Electro Gremlin
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ShaunP said:
I think I will -- I'm going to ask him how two straight cut gears end up costing $2000 ($1000 each!).
Here's what the Maxi Drive website says:
"The LT230RC (rock climber) Lower Low Range
This simple conversion which is all within the original LT230 transfer case lowers low range reduction by 30%. This means a Defender or Disco which normally have only 43:1 first gear low range ratio will become 56:1. This gives the vehicle much more ability to crawl over extreme obstacles at speeds as low as 1mph as with this reduction the engine can produce sufficient torque at idle. Engine braking is also greatly enhanced. The conversion is simply a new pair of low range gears straight cut for strength but accurately hobbed for quite operation.
(40% reduction available on request)"
Simple, eh?
At that rate, even $1000 for the pair would be a comparitive bargain. I'm telling you, there's an opportunity out there for some enterprising soul...
---Norm
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ShaunP
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They cost $650 US each for the 49%, the 30% are $100 less, but you pay $1000 each for the 30%, who knows what for the 49%! so the price for 30% gears here is about $1100 US not $2k so there is $450 per gear somewhere between here and the US. I worked this out on exchange rate of .75.
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Electro Gremlin
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ShaunP said:
Hmmm, I'd almost buy it for $1100 US vs. $2000 at GBR (even though it still seems totally outrageous to me at $1100 US). Do they require a $500 core charge in Australia like they do at GBR?
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ShaunP
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I'm not sure, but I live in Brisbane which only 45-50min run down the Pacific Highway to Mal's workshop so I'd be just laying the old gears on the counter then and there, if I was going to get them, I think M.R automotive here in Brisbane stock Maxi Drive stuff, I know Warren and the guys fitt the Maxi lockers and they have Axles hanging on the wall of the shop, Warren and the guys wouldn't charge me a core they'd trust me to drop them in later. They sent me a steering box to Darwin and said pay us when you get back in a couple of weeks. I'll tell one thing that Mal has that is good value and that's his adjustable, greaseable never wear out A frame ball joint for the rear end, about the same price an LR but you'll never have to change it again.
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Electro Gremlin
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News Flash --
Ashcroft is just coming out with a set of gears that will lower the LT 230 low range by 80% for 650 British Pounds (less than $1,300.00 US) -- apparently with no core charge either!!! They're also coming back with their famous Underdrive unit -- this is good!
I wonder if Maxidrive will drop their 30% & 40% redux gear sets to a reasonable price to compete.
Competition is good for the consumer!
Norm
Ashcroft is just coming out with a set of gears that will lower the LT 230 low range by 80% for 650 British Pounds (less than $1,300.00 US) -- apparently with no core charge either!!! They're also coming back with their famous Underdrive unit -- this is good!
I wonder if Maxidrive will drop their 30% & 40% redux gear sets to a reasonable price to compete.
Competition is good for the consumer!
Norm
For gods sake buy a bloody Toyota already, so we don't have to here you compare the cost/strength/availibility/etc.. to every possible frickin part on a 4x4. If you hate your LR so much then please "upgrage" to a Toyota!