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I took my power wagon "Kirkwood" out for a 20 plus mile drive recently. I really like having the Dennan overdrive with the original motor and 5.83 diffs. It really drops the rpm's down and helps with getting up to about 50 mph without getting the revs too high.
For those who are thinking of going this route, if you have a 6 volt system like I have, you need to modify things a bit. The Dennan overdrive has a 12 volt solenoid. The man that sells the overdrive, Dennis Gronan, told me there is no 6 volt solenoid that will fit the overdrive. 6 volts is marginal at best with it. When I first used it, it would "work", but would "cut out" on me intermittently which is very annoying.
Mac and others in the PW community have a solution for those with 6 volt trucks and that is to get an 8 volt battery and have a generator shop adjust your voltage regulator. That is all you have to do; no other mods are needed, unlike with a 12 volt conversion. 8-9 volts is enough voltage to work the solenoid, and you don't have the more expensive 12 volt conversion to do if you don't want to, for whatever reason.
In my case I had recently bought a brand new 6 volt battery, so what I did is hide a 12 volt motorcycle battery behind the seat, and am now usingt to power the overdrive, as well as power a 12 volt cigar lighter type outlet under the seat on the front seat frame, pretty much out of sight. This outlet allows me to power a CB or cell phone charger too now. I use a battery maintainer to recharge/maintain the motorcycle battery when not driving. So far so good.
One other tip. The overdrive is mounted in rubber tranny mounts to the cross members. I did not have a good ground situation with it (when I tried to run it from the main battery) until I ran a separate ground strap from the overdrive to the frame rail. That solved an activation problem I had at first.
For those who are thinking of going this route, if you have a 6 volt system like I have, you need to modify things a bit. The Dennan overdrive has a 12 volt solenoid. The man that sells the overdrive, Dennis Gronan, told me there is no 6 volt solenoid that will fit the overdrive. 6 volts is marginal at best with it. When I first used it, it would "work", but would "cut out" on me intermittently which is very annoying.
Mac and others in the PW community have a solution for those with 6 volt trucks and that is to get an 8 volt battery and have a generator shop adjust your voltage regulator. That is all you have to do; no other mods are needed, unlike with a 12 volt conversion. 8-9 volts is enough voltage to work the solenoid, and you don't have the more expensive 12 volt conversion to do if you don't want to, for whatever reason.
In my case I had recently bought a brand new 6 volt battery, so what I did is hide a 12 volt motorcycle battery behind the seat, and am now usingt to power the overdrive, as well as power a 12 volt cigar lighter type outlet under the seat on the front seat frame, pretty much out of sight. This outlet allows me to power a CB or cell phone charger too now. I use a battery maintainer to recharge/maintain the motorcycle battery when not driving. So far so good.
One other tip. The overdrive is mounted in rubber tranny mounts to the cross members. I did not have a good ground situation with it (when I tried to run it from the main battery) until I ran a separate ground strap from the overdrive to the frame rail. That solved an activation problem I had at first.
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