Mike Stevens
PCS Member
At our morning 'lairs club' coffee meetings we discuss everything. I drove the 61 one day last week. The talk turned to my miles per gallon. The factory put a 3.77 rear end in the commercial chassis in 61. The NORMAL Cadillacs got 3.31 gears. The limos had I think a 3.53. I don't haul any weight other than suit cases and the gurney now. Several of our group think I could raise my mpg by installing a 3.31 or even lower number rear gear set. The questions none of them can answer is: Will a lower number gear set fit my present rear axle housing and axles? Would it really be worth the amount of time, work, and money to make the change? The coach only gets about 3500 miles per year. No winter driving for us here. Since I don't race the car I could get by without the almost neck snapping get away start I can get now. I mean this thing scales out at over 6300 pounds. How fast do I have to get away from a stop light or sign? With a numerically lower gear set I should still be able to run on the interstate and keep up. I am not sure I would see a big difference in the mpg here. 10-12 mpg seems to be all this thing will give up now. I an not sure an increase of one or two mpg would give me a return soon enough to be worth the trouble. So what are your opinions here?
Mike
Mike
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