Quote:
Originally Posted by Primer70
I 'm eager to see how the drive shafts turn out & work myself. A buddy of mine wants to build a tandem axle pickup & we've thought of a bunch of ways to make it work. A divorced NP203 would be a better chose for doing a tandem axle if you were planning to have both axle drive the truck. I say this because the NP203 t-cases were a full time t-case with a differential in them allowing the front & rear dive shafts to turn at different speeds, like when turning, but the front & rear drive lines could also be locked together in 4wd & 4-LO. The down side of the NP203 is they are a chain driven t-case, are about twice the size of the NP205 & weigh about twice as much too. With a Np205 I'd drive it with the t-case in 2wd & shift into 4wd when the extra traction is needed, adding ARB air lockers to the two rear axles would give you the ability to turn all four tires at once no mater what and the ultimate traction.
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The only advantage to the NP203 would be the center diff. and trying to find a divorced NP203 can be hard to do. I've never seen one myself. I like the NP205 better because it is a much stronger gear driven case. A simple shifter will take care of any issue of trying to drive both axles on dry pavement allowing you to shift from 2 wd to 4 hi. You cannot run this set-up in 4lo with the case turned backwards as I have done. The front axle would try to turn twice as fast as the rear axle if you did since the front axle is driven by what is normally the input from the transmission before the gear reduction inside the t-case. I seriousley don't think I'll have any issue. Check out USA6x6 sometime. The set-up they offer for about $3000 uses a gear driven set-up off of the front axle to give drive to the second axle and no possible way to stop the engagement of the second axle. Apparently it works just fine.