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The real cost of a low range T-case

44K views 46 replies 19 participants last post by  Riceman 
#1 · (Edited)
Well... I promised shogunator and Cana8ian4x4 I'd do this, so I've finally gotten off my butt. Dave, if you think this is worth making a sticky of, please feel free.

I recently bit the bullet and got 4.16 Tcase gears for my Sami. There's been lots of talk about these gears, but I've never seen anyone breakdown what's actually involved in getting and installing the gears, so I thought I'd do it. I'm pretty anal about what I call the "real" cost of doing stuff to your 4x4, - I'm the guy who tells people doing an SPOA to remember to add in the cost of a proper brake bleed to their build. So I'm hoping this breakdown will give everyone a "complete" view of what it takes to get Tcase gears into your Sami. Sorry no digi-cam so no pictures. I am also taking this from the attitude of someone who is at best a "backyard mechanic". If you have your own shop, or have a TIG welder sitting in your garage you are not the "average" Sami owner - this is written for the information of the average Sami owner.

The Gears
For reasons I explain below in "alternative choices" I chose to go with new forged gears. There were three dealers I considered buying from: Trail Tough (frequently recommended on Pirate4x4), Spidertrax (bought stuff from them before and had a good experience), and Calmini (liked their instructions and NSOR is a local supplier). In the end, I chose Trail Tough because they had a "gear only" package - I explain the reasons for this in the customs and duty section.
Cost of Gears: $399 USD
CDN $ Equivalent $533.02 (approx 75 cent exchange rate)

Shipping

Standard U.S. Post is the cheapest way of shipping something, but I found out that most suppliers will only ship via courier to Canada. The reason is the couriers have a tracking number so they can answer customer service questions such as why the package hasn't arrived yet. Not only does this increase the shipping costs, it also increases the customs and duty cost as I will explain later.
UPS Shipping Charge $18 USD
CDN $ Equivalent $24 (approx 75 cent exchange rate)
Total Cost to date: $557.02 Canadian

Method of Payment

Lo and behold, when I double checked my Visa Statement the charge was actually $577.91, more than $20 higher than I expected. When I called VISA they explained that they charge a 2.5% surcharge on any foreign currency purchase. Thank god I bought the cheaper gear only set instead of the complete set! I only have access to a regular VISA card, if you have access to a gold card you may want to call them and see if they charge this fee or not. On a large purchase, 2.5% can really add up.
VISA Markup 2.5%
Total Cost to date: $577.91 (I know this isn't exactly 2.5% I might have been off a bit on the original exchange rate).

Duty, Customs Fees, and Taxes

Canada Post charges a flat $5 custom fee, unfortunately courier companies charge a fee based on the value of what you are importing - that's why I chose the gear only set, to keep the value down. The courier company also sets the declared value - in my case $533.02.
GST on declared value $37.31
PST on declared value $39.98
UPS Brokerage Fee $55.40
GST on Brokerage Fee $3.88 (I love the government)
Total Cost to date $714.48 (This was the total cost delivered to my door).

Seals and Gaskets

At a minimum, you need new seals and gaskets when installing the gears. You may also need washers, bearings, etc. but you really don't know if any of that needs replacing until you open your case. In my situation, everything was fine. I did choose to replace the seal for the speedometer cable and external case seal, but I'm not including these in the price as you don't actually need to replace them (I just figured may as well do all the seals at once). Lordco and NAPA said they didn't have the seals. In Lordco's case they could order a "rebuilder" kit from a supplier but they'd never ordered it from them before and it would take three weeks for delivery as it wasn't in stock (or they were lying to me, the counter staff I got were pretty dumb). So I just bought the gaskets and seals from Suzuki. Trail Tough was charging about $25 USD for these so I came out a bit ahead by avoiding the extra customs and VISA fees.
Gasket $2.31
Gasket $4.48
Input Seal $9.67
Input Seal $9.67
Output Seal $8.52
Total Seals and Gaskets $34.65
GST $2.43
PST $2.60
Total Cost to date $754.16

Edit: forgot the cost of 75-90 Oil, add in about $10

Installation

You need to pull and press on the gears, so if you don't have the tools to do this you're going to have to hire someone. Even if you do have the tools, you'll need the good part of a day and you need to be methodical and patient. My eyes bled from reading the Trail Tough instructions and the Haynes manual has zero instructions for rebuilding a tcase. There are lots of little parts in there so you're going to have to be very methodical about labelling and marking everything.

Impressions of the Trail Tough Gears
They are average - I'm actually a bit dissapointed given how much people rave about this company. The metal looks like there may have been some impurities in it and there was a small chip on my output gear (on the face not the teeth). This is not to say they are bad quality - they are average quality, it's just that I was expecting excellent.

Saving Money
There are ways to spend less on this than I did. If you can find a method of payment that does not charge 2.5% surcharge for paying in US dollars and if you get it shipped to a mailboxes etc. across the line and pick the gears up yourself, you can cut about $100 off my price at an extra cost to you of about $10 for gas and mailbox fees ($90 off total). You could conceivably save the taxes if you could somehow install the gears across the line, but I don't know how legal that is nor how possible.

Alternatives
I went with forged gears, the obvious alternative is to find an '84 tcase and go with cut and welded gears. I think forged gears are a better choice for three reasons:
1) You don't have to wait to find an '84 tcase nor go without a Sami while your gears are being cut and welded.
2) Your gears are new, not used.
3) You don't have to be concerned about the strength of a weld someone else did.
If those reasons are not of a concern to you, then going with cut and welded gears may be an option for you. Rough costs for cut and welded gears "to your door" are:
84 Tcase $200-$300
Breeze Cut and Welding $200
GST on welding $14
PST on welding $15
Total Cost "to your door" $429 - $529

You'd still have to buy the gaskets and seals and install the gears. Compared to my "to the door cost" of $625 - $715 (depending on whether you take my money saving advice or not). You can save $100 - $200 by going with cut and welded gears.

For me getting the gears NOW and the peace of mind of having forged gears was worth the extra cost - you're a different person, it may or may not be worth it to you.

Considering that the two most recent posts for Tcases in the for sale section saw an '84 Tcase go for $300 and a GRSII (4.89 ratio) Tcase for for $1000 (both according to the seller). I am quite satisfied with having new gears in Little Bitch installed and running for $775.

David

Oh I forgot... shipping was regular UPS ground and took 3 business days to get to my door.
 
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#2 ·
hey, great write up david:read

thanks for taking the time.

when I did mine, I couldn't find an '84 case, and I wouldn't have felt comfortable with using old used gears from an unknown source anyway......

So I built mine based on the excellent Spamurai article.
I can't praise those dudes enough for doing such a great job and sharing all the details, it was cool!


bought the Factory Suzuki 1984 gears ($$$) needed and did the Breeze cut & weld.

Truthfully, I think all told, it prob cost me about $850.00 if I include *everything* involved.:eek:
 
#3 ·
Lane...

Was it you who did the BC4x4 write up on this? I'm going to stop by Suzuki on Monday and get the cost of the gears so I can add that in under "alternatives" (I'm union and not working Monday - I hate losing a day's pay).

Me.
 
#5 ·
David said:
Lane...

Was it you who did the BC4x4 write up on this? I'm going to stop by Suzuki on Monday and get the cost of the gears so I can add that in under "alternatives" (I'm union and not working Monday - I hate losing a day's pay).

Me.

not that I recall......

I can give you the part numbers and the prices if you want, but they may be a few years out of date, so they may not be too applicable.

Are the links still up on Spamurai? if not I had downloaded all of the pics and printed them out a long time ago- I don't know if the powers that be would ok re-posting them here or not?

I'll have to poke through my files and dig them out.
 
#6 ·
Nice attention to detail David.

When you get out on the trail, you will likely forget about how much you paid. Trust me, it is night and day difference. You'll have to relearn how to drive. :D When you do post your "driving impressions" to complete the review.

A few things to add just from what I've learned over the years with shipping and buying from the states.

Products manufactured in the states qualify for NAFTA if they have "Made in the USA" on the Bill, or directly applied to them. Therefore they are exempt from Duty (GST and PST) but you have to make a point of specifying that and fill out a form at the border. I have not seen ANY shipping/brokerage company do this for a "client" EVER. So if you ship to Blaine or WHY and bring it across yourself with a NAFTA declaration your price will drop more than the $100. You can look to saving $136 or so on shipping alone. US postal money orders aer a great way to save money buying parts in the US as is paypal for those companies that do that kind of thing. I use visa and Money orders 'cause they are convenient. :soso

LORDCO does stock most of the seals and bearings, you need to know who to ask and what to ask for. I'll try to get more specifics on this later. Having a "Guy" on the inside is extremely helpful. ;)

By chance did you take any "regular" pics of the build? I can scan and post them if you like.

Good job though. I wish I was half as detail oriented as you.
 
#7 ·
1984 SJ410 Transfer Case Gear part numbers:

High Output Gear (single large gear)

29221-80050-Gear, T/M High Output (*retail $191.52)

----------------------------------------------

Counter Gear (one large gear, one smaller gear, one piece.)

this is the gear that gets cut in half when doing the cut and weld process.

29121-80050-Gear, Transfer Counter (*retail $262.24)

-----------------------------------------------


Input Shaft (small gear on splined shaft)

29111-80450-Shaft, Transfer (*retail $284.32)

-------------------------------------------------

Small trasfer case gasket

29535-80050-Gasket, Transfer Case (retail $2.74)
--------------------------------------------------

Large transfer case gasket

29525-80050-Gasket, Transfer Case (retail $5.26)

--------------------------------------------------


* the "suggested retail price" of the gears in 1999 dollars.


Unfortunately, I have misplaced my receipts for the bearings and thrust washers, but I believe you can get that "kit" quite easily from various vendors.



I paid much less than the SRP for my gears, but as with most things in the automotive world, it really depends on who you know in the business I'm afraid.

As to what an individual is likely to get price reductions-wise...you should be able to get at least a couple hundred bucks knocked off to make it worthwhile.

And sorry, the contact and place itself that I had used, is long since gone:(
 
#8 ·
Shogunator said:


Products manufactured in the states qualify for NAFTA if they have "Made in the USA" on the Bill, or directly applied to them. Therefore they are exempt from Duty (GST and PST)



I discovered that when receiving a part from the 'States via UPS or FedEx, a hideous brokerage fee is applied, and you have to pay GST on top of the brokerage fee.:rolleyes:

I got an item for free, ("used auto part, $5.00 value" written in large black marker on package) but I paid shipping.

The FedEx charge was outrageous amount that caught me off guard, the brokerage fee was something like $15.00 or $20.00 US, and then there was GST *on top* of all those charges.:angry

My "free" part cost me somewhere around $60.00 CDN

Note; By no means am I complaing about spending 60 bucks. I'm still way ahead of the game 'cause I hadn't been able to locate the part I needed in the first place, and the act of the guy sending me what I needed for free, was totally awesome!

Just be aware of potential costs cropping up that can catch you off guard! I had been blithely oblivious to such nasty things...:confused2
 
#11 · (Edited)
Shogunator said:
Products manufactured in the states qualify for NAFTA if they have "Made in the USA" on the Bill, or directly applied to them. Therefore they are exempt from Duty (GST and PST) but you have to make a point of specifying that and fill out a form at the border. I have not seen ANY shipping/brokerage company do this for a "client" EVER. So if you ship to Blaine or WHY and bring it across yourself with a NAFTA declaration your price will drop more than the $100. You can look to saving $136 or so on shipping alone. US postal money orders aer a great way to save money buying parts in the US as is paypal for those companies that do that kind of thing. I use visa and Money orders 'cause they are convenient. :soso
Would you believe the gears are made in Canada? Or at least the box TT shipped the gears in was for a Canadian Gear maker (Imasco or something like that). I think I will try calling UPS about a refund.

Shogunator said:
LORDCO does stock most of the seals and bearings, you need to know who to ask and what to ask for. I'll try to get more specifics on this later. Having a "Guy" on the inside is extremely helpful. ;)
I figured as much.... having a "kit" would have made life easier.

Shogunator said:
By chance did you take any "regular" pics of the build? I can scan and post them if you like.

Good job though. I wish I was half as detail oriented as you.
[/b]
No Pics :(

Thanks for the input Dave... all this helps because I'm sure I will end up buying more stuff from the states.

Me.

Edit - I suck at quoting.
 
#12 ·
Hey Dave....

I just called Canada Customs. I explained to them that there was no "duty" charge but there was a PST and GST charge. They didn't know what the heck you were talking about :)

According to them you always pay GST on what you import.

They did say that if I was a business I would be PST exempt.

Me.
 
#13 · (Edited)
David said:


:D I took some pics of mine, but they were more of the: "OMG look at all this crap spread out all over kingdom come what have I done" variety, not nice "how-to build up" kind. lol


My non-vehicular interested family/co-workers turned green and you could see them reflexively patting wallets to re-assure their CAA cards were still there. :laugh





I had a real bother of a time trying to get those pesky pinion nuts/flanges off with the stone knives and bear skins I had for tools.....so I had to improvise.

Ended up U-bolting my JackAll to them through the holes in the jack and one of the bolt holes on the flange.

Standing on the jack's I-beam for leverage, and using one of those cheap torque wrenches, *grooooooan* *bend*

But hey, it worked great:D

 
#14 ·
David said:
Hey Dave....

I just called Canada Customs. I explained to them that there was no "duty" charge but there was a PST and GST charge. They didn't know what the heck you were talking about :)

According to them you always pay GST on what you import.

They did say that if I was a business I would be PST exempt.

Me.

"Duty" is HST (Harmonization Sales Tax), GST and some exise taxes... ;) And no, you don't always pay it. If it qualifies for NAFTA you don't pay it. The only place you pay HST as part of Duty is in some of the Maritime Provinces. DUTY is simply our governments way of collecting "sales tax" on things you buy in the states. What the exise tax is depends on the type of good (tobacco and alchol for instance). You are correct on the PST angle, I mixed it up with HST. Don't try to claim NAFTA and PST exempt, they don't work together very well (you have to have purchased goods for personal use and if you use your PST exempt # you are telling them that the goods are for business use). Here is a good link for personal exemptions and here is one on Duties and NAFTA.

The Service Delivery Rep you were speaking to was relaying the generic response to your question. If you ask them about NAFTA, they'll give you the speel I laid out above. Let's just say I have a slight inside track on this type of info because of where I work... ;)
 
#17 ·
Updates

Well I've looked into a few things over the past few weeks and have some more information that might be useful.

Bearings
When you open your tcase up you may ahve to redo your bearings. Lordco (with the 30% discount everyone and their dog gets) is marginally cheaper than Suzuki. If you can open the tcase up and read the numbers off the bearings, chances are you can get them from BC Bearing which would be the cheapest. You're still looking at $125 on up to replace the roller bearings. When you add this into the price of the gaskets and seals, it's actually MUCH cheaper to by a complete gasket and bearing set from the states (see them for $90 USD compared to $150 CDN and higher up here), even taking into account duty.

Which leads us to....

Saving Money on Taxes
I followed up what shogunator said about saving the GST. Apparently this only applies if you stay down south for a few days and include the gears as part of your 48 hour allowance. So, order them in to a mailboxes etc. and take the GF to Seattle for the weekend. I hate taxes.

And finally

Cost of a Mechanic Installing the Gears
I asked around about this. According to "the book" a re and re of the Sami tcase is listed at 5 - 6 hours. The infamous "friend of a friend" mechanic said $400 cash to do the work. YMMV.

Me.
 
#19 ·
MrK said:
Any idea on how hard it is for the average schmuck to install the gears?
It's not technically difficult. The problem is tools. Chances are you will need a puller, and maybe air tools. You will also need to be pretty methodical about labelling little bits (i.e. washers and needle bearings).

I'd say at least a whole day... maybe two.

Me.
 
#20 ·
another thing to take into consideration, if you're going to do this mod full out is... to deffinatly beef the crap out of your t-case arm and change all them snapping rubber t-case mounts over to poly ones. when you lower your gears, so much more added tourqe is being ditributed to all those dinky mounts trying to hold your t-case in place... just something else to think about while you got your transfer case dropped.
 
#21 ·
I was charged 2.8 hours shop time for the installation of my t-case gears. (transfer-case was taken out and cleaned by me) So we rounded the total charge to $200 which when payed for in cash was tax free because all the parts and neccesities were supplied by me. Alot less than the 5-6 hours and $400 David mentioned. :) As for the exact final charge onto the card for the calmini 5.14 gears, which included everything needed, I'll have to get back to you on that. I'm estimating that the total cost came in under $1000 installed. :cool:

PS. Case was shipped to Blain, Wa and mention of the pick-up was somehow forgotten. ;)
 
#23 ·
David,

Did you consider Rocky-Road Outfitters out of Utah they carry a series of Tcase gears with a range of pricing that seem to be exponential. For just the 4:16 gears they wanted $399US, for $490US you get:

Gears, gaskets, counter bearings, thrust
washers, shims, counter shaft. and installation instructions w/ pic's

These are Suzuki gears and they guarantee for as long as you own the vehicle. Do others offer this guarantee. Just wondering what you think, is it worth dealing with these guys and for the $91US more get the extras?

Changing gears, how do you like the new gearing, and are you also running lower diff gears.

like the writeup and about to do the same.

on the build and looking for gooood parts, don't want cheap stuff on my Sami. I figure if your gonna have it, it may as well be the best.
 
#24 ·
Pay extra and get the "complete" set with bearings, seals, etc. It seems to be cheaper to get those parts down there than up here. You don't really know until you open your tcase if you need bearings, etc.

The web community seems to be split 50/50 on whether RR has good or ****ty service.

I don't see how these can be "suzuki gears" if they are forged gears. We'd all be buying the gears from suzuki if they were available. The old way to get the gears done was to get suzuki gears from two different model tcases, then cut and weld them together.

I don't have axle gears, I have almost as much power/speed as a stock sami with the tcase gears and my 31's. The low gears give you a lot more control, but I found out the hard way they are no substitute for a locker.

Me.
 
#25 ·
Thanks David,

Figured I'd try an order from RR and see what their parts, service and price to Canada were for myself. Should know within a week or so about the final cost (incl. taxes etc). I think the deciding factor to go with RR was their warranty on most of their products.

Ordered the works for the Tcase. Also ordered the SPOA Kit, the Over the Top Steering and the Panhard Bar for now. Should know how long the Tcase takes with a bunch of Backyard Mechanics once I get the parts. Don't drink but all the friends?, do so should go smoothly, friends are lushes and may be expensive.

I agree about the lockers, just deciding ARB or Lockrite. Want to keep the Sami road wise.
 
#26 ·
so i have an 84 case what was ur total cost from breeze to cut weld and assemble?
 
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