NP 208 transfer Pro's and cons

[Fleg]

Flint,

Were apparently the 1% 'ers. Your opinion doesn't matter!

[will e]

I have been known to take on a rock or two. Not extreme buggy crawl'n rocks but about as big as you might want to drive a FSJ over without doing major body damage. I have also drug it through many 'rock gardens'. The np208 never let me down. I never saw one go on the trail. I ran it with 4.56 gears and 35" tires. Hitting one would be hard, they are tucked up pretty tight but skid plates are available.

I did swap it out for an atlas but I wanted the flexibility of the 4 speed and I like the 2wd lo option due to my front locker. Oh, and the atlas has an aluminum case so it's kinda shiney.

[fulsizjeep]

Flint,

Were apparently the 1% 'ers. Your opinion doesn't matter!

I dunno...
My first FSJ had a D20 and it took some abuse from my young dumbass. All the other tcases I have had in FSJs were prissy chain drives. That is not an opinion.

[Tad]

NP208 on top of rocks.

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/heimeke ... 4.mp4.html

Not sure if redwag had the Atlas in 2010, but 3 NP208's in a row.



And just a silly NP208 poser pic.

[fulsizjeep]

Only pastels for my 208.

[carnuck]

The O.P. want good and bad points of the tcase in general. Not if I only do this or that or the other.

Here are MY bad points of the 208, horrible aftermarket, aluminum cased, chain drive.

happy?

Since they function fine stock, I guess aftermarket wasn't necessary? I wonder if the 4:1 low range from a Rubicon NV241 OR would fit in?

Dodge ones are mirror image to the Jeep one (RH instead of LH front output) Ran behind 440s, V10s and first gen Cummins with 727 trans as well as first gen O/D automatics.
GM ones got a bad rep due to the plastic shift forks and slip yoke with skinny chain causing breakdowns, especially with a 454 or 6.3 diesel.
Ford quit using them because they went to Borg Warner (bought them out I heard?) but the 460, 6.9 and first year of 7.3 ran them with C6 auto. The ford one has a longer/wider chain and larger diameter drives (where the chain rides) between main and front output so they don't skip as easily.

Then of course there was Timex, home of the bottomless tcase. http://www.off-road.com/aimages/article ... ticle.html

[Cecil14]

...Borg Warner (bought them out I heard?)

BW is still very much it's own company. Sold off a lot of different subsidiaries in the 80s but all the driveline stuff has stayed BW throughout.


aa

[Tad]

...
Then of course there was Timex, home of the bottomless tcase. http://www.off-road.com/aimages/article ... ticle.html

Awesome links.
Well worth the read.

[fulsizjeep]

I met Timex after the bottom fell off and was amazed Doc was still driving it, though on a limited basis.

[derf]

The NP207 (smaller cousin to the NP208) became the NP231 and is run in rock crawling XJs, YJs and TJs all over the place. The NP241 in my JK is a direct descendant to the NP208 and it does just fine in the rocks. Yeah, having a twin stick may be useful sometimes but unless you're doing something extreme it really isn't. There really isn't much difference between the 2.61 of the NP208 and the 2.72 of an NP241. Not enough for most people to even notice.

As far as aluminum vs iron, there really isn't much to talk about. All of the automatics and modern manual transmissions are aluminum cased. Sure, a few old ones are iron but they haven't been around since the 1980's. If you're worried about the strength of the case and it getting hit by something, build yourself a good set of skid plates. As far as cases letting go when the driveline binds on an obstacle, you may want to consider building in a better fuse for your driveline (like a u-joint or driveshaft) instead of overbuilding everything to the point where the t-case is the weakest link. But that's just my opinion.