Angelo,
Yes I think I was the first to actually have a set of the 3.15 fitted. These gears were made to fit a 2nd hand transfer case that Mitsabissan (Frank Zanetti) sourced in Melbourne, Aus. If I recall correctly a couple of us over here chipped in for the cost of the transfer case. At that time Frank didnt have a 3.5l Paj so he was doing us a huge favour by organising the manufacture of these gears. To date there is no-one else who has made or is willing to make these gears.
The gears were shipped to me & I had them installed by a 4wd shop in Canberra. Apart from a minor install problem relating to a shim (apparantly Mitsu used different thickness shims from time to time) the gears have performed faultlessly.
There are some guys over here trying to get a group buy together for a set to fit the Tritons here (the Triton is a 4wd utility vehicle with Gen 2.5 running gear) & thats where I heard that they had contacted Hardmans & were told that no stock was available & he would only fabricate with a minumun order.
I did send Mark Hardmann an email but no reply yet, however they might still be on Xmas vacation. I will call them tomorrow & get back to you.
Just out of interest there is a mob here in Australia who are acting as agents for Marlin Crawlers in the US (I'm sure you have heard of marlin) & they posted that they were willing to try to get marlin to make up a crawler to suit the Tritons. All Marlin would require were some sample parts
here is an extract from the post
"Why am I telling you Triton boys this?
It's not to rub it in....seriously.....well, maybe just a little....
but to be frank with you all there is no reason i dont think why this part cannot be made to fit a Triton.
all you (im reffering to you triton owners here that want to crawl) have to do/organise is to get the following parts together to send to Marlin in the USA to make a unit for the triton - a rear transmission adaptor/bellhousing and transmission out put shaft, the front transfercase adaptor and transfercase input shaft.
with these parts in hand Marlin can then fabricate front and rear adaptors for the crawl box aswell as include the correct couplers for the shafts.
Matty from Monster rides is going to be the australian agent for these so if you triton boys think that this would be worth putting your collective mitsubishi asses together and resources and getting the parts needed over to matty to forward onto Marlin, then you triton could be crawling too.
so how bout it boys?
who here is "seriously" interested in being able to get their mitsubishi crawling?
Oh, i should mention also that my final crawl ratio is around 125:1 as a reference. and with this unit fitted you have the choice of the following gear sets -
1) your factory transfercase by itself
2) the crawl boxes (4.7) by itself
3) compound low with both boxes in low range.
much more usable than just one set of low range gears.
let me know what you guys think bout this? actually, let matty know, send him an email at
matty@monsterrides.com.au and tell him your interested in developing a crawl box for the triton.....post your interest here to so we can see a running tally.
cheers guys, hope thats some hope for you all."
The cost would be more that the 3.15 but would give you much more options with more ratios. I must admit that sometimes the 3.15 are too low & sometimes not low enough, so it would be great to have the standard ratio, plus to option to go lower again, but I guess it depends upon how much $$ you want to throw at our vehicles!
cheers & I'll get back once I contact Hardmans.
