NapaBavarian
Dually driver 6.9
A friend mentioned he has one he'd sell if someone made him an offer that sounded good, it came from a 1.5 ton truck, but I don't have any other details yet.
Brownie over/direct/under value?
- Thread starter NapaBavarian
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awhtx
Registered User
A salvage yard near Waco, TX quoted me $275 for a Spicer 7231D.
That's a steal, but that is a heavier box than a 5831b by about 80 lbs and it's about 5 inches longer the gears are pretty close it's a 2.14 ud, Dir, and 0.86 OD.
You could hook up to a freight train and not hurt that thing , although, I don't know how well the rest of teh truck would hold up
That's the last step before you get into the heavy haul boxes ( as if you even need anything as stout as a 5831, but it's nice to know that you have a box that its pretty well impossible to trash 
if the thing's made it this long in commercial haul service, there's pretty well no way you are going to trash it in your pickup)Diesel JD
Full Access Member
I found a Watson and another strange brownie during my hunt for them. I went with the 5831-D. It's very similar to RL's 5831-B but came in a Ford F-800 long ago. I just need to find the funds to replace the bearings and buy the end yokes I need, chop the driveshafts and rebalance them. At that point the only really hard part is going to be the shift linkages and the huge in cab shifter. I feel like I'm going to need to find something else to drive for a couple of weeks in case it goes badly.
tech51
Full Access Member
I got one for 600.00 with shifter and linkage. It's a 5831A and I just need to find one more..
What makes you think the bearings need replacing? THe seals I'd replace for sure, but the bearings on those things rarely are in bad shape Was there any crunchies in the oil when you opened it up? If it was good and clean and no scoring on the balls, I'd leave the things. They don't even suffer the torture a main box input shaft bering gets when idling in neutral pointed uphill because the brownie is completely disengaged ( I lost a 13 speed box to that once while the
CHP couldn't make up ther friggen minds whether or not to let us go the next half mile to the top of the mountain to the Oregon border with or without chains on.Once they finally let us go , come to find out there wasn't snowflake one on the ground all the way to the Canadian border 
nyteshades
Full Access Member
K I'm curious. Where do you mount this things and if you're running empty what kind of mileage are you getting out of them? Do you have to float the brownie to shift between direct and over? When in under, how low are the gears? When empty and crusing down the highway in 5th over, what are you taching at 70?
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Mounting depends on ground clearance and how short your driveshaft builder will go. My builder wouldn't go less than 18" which limited me to back under the bed if I didn't want to remove any crossmembers ( which I could have and I could have welded up some new ones shaped a little different , but I had my reasons. I wanted to keep the one for the center support bearing for teh stock driveshaft in place so I could carry the stock driveshafts with me on long trips that way if for some strage reason the brownie ever lays down on me out on the road, I can have it towed into any morons shop and point to what to do and they can remove the brownie and throw it in the bed and pop the stock driveshaft back in in under 2 hours labour tops.
If your shaft builder can make a 9" shaft it could be mounted right behind the main box.
Running empty I get 18-20mpg, that's with a crew cab with 4.10 rear and a real big heavy fuel tank and a Western Hauler bed made out of 3/16 plate so my truck is heavier than most. The under drive range is a serious deep reduction you don't split in th eUD You stick it in UD and go 12345 and can climb trees, then go up to dir 2 od2 dir3 od3 etc, actually it's not needed to split all those gears, unless insanely heavy and steep, but I was in a few places on our recent cross country trip pulling the 5er where we flat wouldn't have made it without that thing.
nyteshades
Full Access Member
Interesting info. Thanks RLDSL. I wonder how a 4x4 would handle it....
NapaBavarian
Dually driver 6.9
Thanks, it may be a bit before I can get the numbers, I only see him from time to time.
As far as mounting, crew cab long bed makes life easy new center bearing?
As far as mounting, crew cab long bed makes life easy
new center bearing?Thanks, it may be a bit before I can get the numbers, I only see him from time to time.
As far as mounting, crew cab long bed makes life easy
If you don't mind ditching that crossmember, you can mount the thing where teh center bearing goes now and tuck it up tight and it would fit nicely. You would need to ditch the other crossmembers and make your own or cut the centers out of them and weld u shaped sections to go under teh driveshaft but it would work very well. It would make routing shift rods a lot easier too. I had to have an air powered hydraulic bender to make the shift rods, however someone who's not half crippled would be able to do it with a regular hydraulic bender or possibly even a manual bender and a torch.I'm just not that nimble anymore.
Interesting info. Thanks RLDSL. I wonder how a 4x4 would handle it....
If you had a divorced transfer case it would be insane you could really have a massive combination of gears, not to mention a wicked compound low that you could scale buildings with, but with an attached transfer case you could only mount one behind the transfer case and only use it in 2wd high
Diesel JD
Full Access Member
Hey Robert, I just thought the bearings should be replaced as a matter of course, but I don't see anything wrong with what's in there now, no obvious metal was in the old oil, really the box was pretty pristine. Really it's no emergency if it folds on me and needs new bearings most of the places I go I could handle it. Might be a good way to save some cash. The only thing that has me concerned is that I have heard maybe from you and also from others that you should not rigid mount these things and I can't seem to find the rubber mounts. I have the Spicer shift linkages, cross member and mounting bolts and the in cab shifter and I was planning to just swap my 2WD floor pan for a 4WD pan I already have to make rooom for the shifter and linkages. @Nyteshades, yeah this thing is straight cut with no syncros, so I guess I'm going to have to get better at double clutching or floating gears. I can do it with my T18 and not have scary noises but the syncros still help I'm told. Mainly I would only want to split 3rd and 4th. For most of my driving 3rd hi would be the right gear and OD would help mileage a lot when I can get over 50 mph.
I scrounged through the rubber mount selection at the Kenworth dealer and found some that I made to work. I can take some close up pictures of the setup I rigged in there if it'll help you any.I rigged them with long bolts with a number of spacer washers on each side so I could adjust the angle of teh box to adjust the ujoint angles if needed, which came in handy. I was able to get a vibration out when I first installed it by moving a few washers
