Speedometer gear help

[Ford F834]

A breakthrough, maybe...

The 1345 gear type does not seem to be shown on the chart. It is a plastic gear mounted on a metal sleeve. I have some pictures stolen from other forums and it's definitely the 1345 case.







The part he used has the number 305997B on the package. Cobra Transmission in Florida lists this part, but the website says call for price and availability. It's too early to call, and they might not be open Saturday but I will give this a shot:

https://cobratransmission.com/bw-1345-speedometer-gear-55000066-1




Drivetrain.com lists the gear as well, but again it is an order by phone deal, and the price for the 8 tooth yellow gear is $67.39, more than twice the listed price for the 6 and 7 tooth versions 😡

http://www.drivetrain.com/parts_catalog/transfer_case_replacements_and_parts/bw1345.html

[Gary Lewis]

Great find!  I still haven’t heard back from Midwest on that, but should have asked when I talked to them about the E4. Sorry. 😬

[Ford F834]

No worries, hopefully Cobra will have it at the price advertised. I will report back when I find out.

[Ford F834]

No luck at Cobra Transmission. They told me the gear is no longer available. I did more googling and found other vendors listing the 305997B. Some even let me add it to my shopping cart for check out but upon calling and asking I found that none of them had it either. So I guess it really is going to be a junkyard item or very lucky eBay find if one turns up.

However, I am a little confused about the junkyard F250. It was equipped with the green (7 tooth) drive gear, and a light pink 19 tooth driven gear. It had 3.55 gears and 235-85R16 stock tire size. According to the calculator, this would make the speedometer way off. It would be correct with the 16 tooth driven gear according to the calculator. Wrong driven gear installed? Maybe... but there was an FTE thread where the guy was looking for the green gear and had the identical combination in his F250, 3.55's and 235/85R16 tire size. Also, being a school district fleet vehicle, it is somewhat less likely that someone would have stuck wrong parts in it just to get by. It was a plow truck and had not seen many miles. Anyway, *if that combination of the green gear with the pink gear did read correctly, then going down to a 16 tooth would essentially correct the reading for my 3.00 gears instead of 3.55's. I mention this because in that same thread NumberDummy says there is some difference in how drive gear teeth are counted. If so, maybe the green gear would work with the 16 tooth gear on my truck???

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1059853-speedo-drive-gear-choices-for-bw1345.html

[Gary Lewis]

I read part of that thread, and got to the part where "someone" said:

The parts catalog is telling me the BW 1345 was available:

80/86 F350
87/89 F150/350

Then I looked at the page Driveline/Transfer Cases and found 1345's used in a few more applications than that, and the screen snag below is only about half of them.  'Tis a shame that guy didn't have a better resource to turn to.  




Seriously though, with what I read in that thread it would seem that the green gear would work for you.  Can you buy the gear and not the whole t-case at the salvage?

[Ford F834]

Thank you Gary! The answer is yes, I can buy just the gear... if I can successfully remove it in the yard. The usual way to get the yoke nut off is with an impact wrench. The only chance I have is to break it loose by holding the yoke with a large pipe wrench. It would certainly be easier to buy the whole case, but $125 plus incidentals is a high price for a plastic gear 🙄. It might be worthwhile though, as I discovered what is going on with my hold-down. The big wish bone retainer is for a GM housing. There is a second hole for the Ford type retainer bolt and mine is stripped. It would be a shame to install the new gear just to have the cable back out and potentially ruin it. I'm sure I could rig something with the wishbone retainer but I'm leaning towards buying the whole case. I wish I knew for sure if that gear would produce the desired result with the 16 tooth driven gear, but it seems likely that it would...

[Gary Lewis]

Getting that flange off might be hard in a salvage with hand tools. And with the stripped hold-down, taking the whole thing might be better. Would that be a faster/easier solution than wrestling with getting the flange off and getting the gear out plus figuring out the hold-down?  Sometimes there’s a trade off between time and money.