86 wagoneer question

my dad has a jeep wagoneer with a ford 302 in it, his problem is, it has an automatic 3 speed transmission (4x4 too). and he wants something more drivable in the freeway, a 4 speed, or overdrive. do you guys know if and what can be done?

by the way, i went to a transmissions shop today and they told me they didnt even know if it could be done, and then they told me it could, but it would be a bitch, and it would be better to just buy a new wagoneer.
thanx for reading hehe

It depends on the driveline that is in this vehicle.

When the 302 was swapped in, was an adaptor used to mate it to the stock transmission, or was a Ford transmission and transfer case used?

Regardless, you will need to find an '80's Ford AOD 4 spd auto overdrive (from a 302 or 351 powered 4x4). I am not sure if your existing transfer case will bolt up (see the above question)

Likely you will need to lengthen the front driveshaft and shorten the rear one as well as modify or move the transmission mount.

An alternative is to get taller axle gears, front and rear. Your old gear sets may be sold to defray some of the cost. If the transfer case has low range, you can easily use 3:1 gears, unless the truck has big tires.

Speaking of which, what about simply using larger diameter tires?? This would hurt acceleration a bit but would help the cruise speed and you could upgrade to better off road tires, too.

thanx for replying, it actually has big tieres, i had thought about changing the gears, but i dont think that would be such a noticable difference, my dad told me today he wants a new transfer case too. i think its too much work, not worth it

thanx for replying, it actually has big tieres, i had thought about changing the gears, but i dont think that would be such a noticable difference, my dad told me today he wants a new transfer case too. i think its too much work, not worth it
Yeah, with the big tires, the gear ratio swap is not such a good idea, although even a change of .25:1 can make a noticible difference.

Ideally, you need a Ford 4 spd overdrive trans. It mak be worth it if you can find one used with a matching transfer case cheap.

I was told in the transmission shop it would be a pain the a$$ to do that. that i might need to modify, or get new mounts, again, modify or get a new drive shaft, and a bunch of other stuff. sounds kinda scary :s
my dad is always very busy (hes even having me do the research on this!) and i dont think we (or I) could ever get that done in the garage. (i actually dont even know if the thing will fit in our garage haha) so the work would defenetly be done by a professinal in a shop. which sounds like big $$$

but oh well, thanx a lot for all your input.

MagicRat is right on except Im not sure the bigger tires are helping his mileage. RPMs arent the MPG killer that most people think they are. What really kills MPG is throttle position. The more the throttle is open, the more air is entering and engine, the more fuel is mixed in with it.
I think your dads Jeep is fulltime 4X4 and its heavy, as square as a shoebox and turning heavier than stock tires. Physics says theres not much that can be done about its fuel economy. You are talking about spending $1000 to change out a tranny, possibily t-case, driveshafts, mounts, adaptors and so forth to save maybe 2 or 3 MPG. My suggestion is to put smaller, lighter tires back on and drive 5 or 10 MPH slower to up your MPG.

well the main reason for the swap isnt to get better MPG its just to have less strain on the motor since on the freeway (he tells me) it runs on high RPM's. oh, and its not a 4x4 all the time, it has a lever to change it to 2x4
he says somethin is wrong with the transfercase cuz its makin noise or somethin.