Brownies on Ebay

[GOOSE]

This guy left a phone number on the auction site. These are about 1.5 hrs away from me. If all three are good and I can find two people who really are interested in them, I would go and look at them. Seems like the only downfall is only being able to use over or under gear in 2wd. Three of us could have these in our trucks for a fraction of gear vendors cost. This would be like the 5 on 3 setups Mack used to use I guess. Under drive for heavy towing, 1:1 for around town, and od for highway. Even seems more useful than GV. Any idea how much drag they create in the driveline? Some of that big truck stuff takes power just to turn the big, heavy gears inside. If anybody is interested, message me.

 

[RLDSL]

This guy left a phone number on the auction site. These are about 1.5 hrs away from me. If all three are good and I can find two people who really are interested in them, I would go and look at them. Seems like the only downfall is only being able to use over or under gear in 2wd. Three of us could have these in our trucks for a fraction of gear vendors cost. This would be like the 5 on 3 setups Mack used to use I guess. Under drive for heavy towing, 1:1 for around town, and od for highway. Even seems more useful than GV. Any idea how much drag they create in the driveline? Some of that big truck stuff takes power just to turn the big, heavy gears inside. If anybody is interested, message me.

That is a single countershaft gearbox, the drag is minimal, the REAL heavy duty brownies ( 1241, 1241p )are twin countershaft and those would have prohibitive parisitic loss. I think the weight of my driveshafts puts more drag on than the box, my driveshaft builder was worried I had some monster powerhouse modern diesel and was going to be taking it to the pulls or something, because he built shafts stout enough for a semi

Shifting behind my zf5 goes as follows, when REAL heavy or towing out of a bad place, UD, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, DIR-2, OD-2, DIR-3 , OD-3, DIR-4, OD-4
DIR-5, OD-5
This is all the direct progression, rarely are that many splits needed, even when towing, I normally leave it in OD and tow on the highway in 4over, it's the best for fuel mileage and power with my 4.10 rear, then split upper geaars as needed in the mountains

 

[GOOSE]

Thanks, this sounds like a necessity for me. Sometimes I tow a 21,000lb gross trailer around town and this would wake up the trucks ability to get the load moving. Also double over must help the 4:10's on the highway. Sounds like there is no drawbacks here. A am pretty good at fabbing, are the shift linkage and towers easy to build? I could build three of them and anybody else who might want one would have the linkage and tower.

 

[RLDSL]

I was lucky, I got the factory shifter with mine, it takes a set of stout rods to shift the thing in a push pull arrangement. if too tricky, I bet Anderson Bros in OR probably has shifters, they sell a bunch of used and reconditioned brownies, they were real popular around there in log trucks.

I also thought about fabricating a cable shift setup, if you could find stout enough cables, that would be an easy way to go. Bending those rods is a real project, and I had a 16ton air powered hydraulic bender to do it with.

 

[Bill-W]

You guys could use somthing like this:

http://advanceadapters.com/product/2257/303009A.html

I don't know what you would use the second cable for? They might sell you just a single. Although I am sure it could sourced it for cheaper.

I'd love to throw a brownie behind my C6 with a manual valve body it it!

 

[RLDSL]

You guys could use somthing like this:

http://advanceadapters.com/product/2257/303009A.html

I don't know what you would use the second cable for? They might sell you just a single. Although I am sure it could sourced it for cheaper.

I'd love to throw a brownie behind my C6 with a manual valve body it it!

You would have to use both cables. THere are 2 shift rods going to the box, 1 controls UD to N, the other rod moves DIR-N-OD, but most of the time you would only be shifting between DIR and OD anyway , unless you had a 4 speed brownie.

I have found in a couple of my Spicer manuals, a couple of good pictures and a partial diagram with some dimensions on the factory shifter. If someone wanted to try to fabricate, it would not be overly difficult, I could scan those off and email to anyone interested.

 

[foxman]

Robert:
First of all, it was great to meet you when I was in Little Rock. Your truck is awsome with so many features.
The people who are wanting the aux-trans must do some backyard engineering. For the others on here, I also have a Brownie 3way in an old farm truck. I notice that these have an E-brake drum on rear of trans which would solve the e-brake problem when going to disc rears. If you can find an old foxcraft or simular shifter from late 60's you can mount it backwards and fab the shift rods. Works great !
As you now know, this tranny takes driving to a complete new level. There seems to be no situation that a gear is not available to handle. Best thing since BRUTON *****
Foxman

 

[icanfixall]

If I had a manual 5 sped trans I sure would install a brownie. I personally like shifting for myself but... The wifey "claims" to be shiftless... She has driven our Healeys without any issues but now shes shiftless... I have around $8000.0 in my BTS and Gear Vendors.. Thats really sickens me but... I will not need another E4OD nor will I ever need another gear when pulling anything. I'm probably going to start running a 4.10 rear end. I do like the 1800 rpm at 85 mph but I really don't need to traveling that fast. Its fun but its fast. There is a funny feeling when you run out of range on the speedo.. So in the long run changing the gears and making my truck a dually will give me al that I really need-want out of a truck.Now I need to install one of the hypermax intercoolers and dyno it with a moose pump... Still wondering what my horse power is. The way it pulls in double overdrive tells me its up there. The final ration with 3.55 gears in double od is 1.97.... Fast and smooth at 1800 rpm and 85 mph. So you can see I probably will get fine mileage with a set of 4.10's probably turning 2200 rpm at 85 mph...

 

[RLDSL]

It looks like that fella has relisted those boxes here

 

[RLDSL]

Robert:
First of all, it was great to meet you when I was in Little Rock. Your truck is awsome with so many features.
The people who are wanting the aux-trans must do some backyard engineering. For the others on here, I also have a Brownie 3way in an old farm truck. I notice that these have an E-brake drum on rear of trans which would solve the e-brake problem when going to disc rears. If you can find an old foxcraft or simular shifter from late 60's you can mount it backwards and fab the shift rods. Works great !
As you now know, this tranny takes driving to a complete new level. There seems to be no situation that a gear is not available to handle. Best thing since BRUTON *****
Foxman

It was sure great to see you too!

If anyone is planning on putting one of these things in, they need to see Foxman's shifter setup. Seeing the pictures of his shift rods gave me the courage to take on bending up mine

 

[GOOSE]

Brownies have been relisted. I'm watching them this time around. I'm a sucker for more gears.

 

[Diesel JD]

He wants too much money for just the unknown used box I think. $450 just to start? Might be about right if it had all the linkages and mounts also...but hey it's still way cheaper than a GV or US Gear OD and probably worth it to the right person.

 

[RLDSL]

$450 isn't out of line. I got mine with the shifter and crossmembers for $500, but that was a steal. Now there/'s one guy on ebay whos been trying to sell a used 6041 4 speed brownie for months with a $1000 start bid with no luck and he's nuts. That thing is listed again right now, but he's not going to sell it. You could buy a used 6041 from Anderson Bros for $550 and a reconditioned one for $950

 

[Diesel JD]

Yeah maybe I need to stop being so cheap if I ever want to get one of these. Then I don't have it now so it doesn't matter if I want to or not, however this year I have no debt so when the summer rolls around and I start doing more bug work again I'll have cash to spend on one. There's still a guy here that has a coupe but I don't know what model since I haven't gone out and looked yet. I think they might be 7231s since they were in medium duty IH dump trucks if I recall right.

 

[GOOSE]

No bids on the brownie auction again. I wonder if this would persuade the seller to go cheaper? Say $300-$350? Hey Robert, what kind of weight do you tow with this setup and would you reccomend a 6000 or 7000 series instead. I read the 1st number is the torque rating 5=500ftlbs and so on. Some argue that the torque multiplication if the primary trans raises the need for heavier unit. I think its just the touque rating of your motor and they already adjusted for primary trans torque increase. 5000 series seems like overkill for a one ton to me. I'm considering Chelsea PTO cables and twin lever setup or a Hurst 3speed floor shifter or a combo of the two. Sound HD enough?