4x4 Parts Shop, Colorado Springs, CO 80915

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So we’ve got some big meats and a couple huge axles to go under this Scout. The question is, will the stock 304 turn it? The answer is yes, but barely. We need something more in the gearing department if this Scout will ever crawl with the best of built Scouts. And the answer was, nothing short of Mr. Scout’s Creeper Box.

Mike Fiock, owner of Mr. Scout, is a dear friend and business associate of ours. He’s been building “hard” core Scouts for quite some time, and has developed a couple sweet parts for them. One of his latest creations is what he calls a Creeper box. This thing is awesome, its equivalent to a Klune-V, but for Scouts.

For years you’ve had to own a Jeep or Chevy to get the more extreme upgrades in the powertrain area. But not now, not with guy’s like Mike around. He recognized the needs of us Scout builders and answered with an awesome under-drive unit. The Mr. Scout CreeperBox. Think of it like a second transfer case. Depending on what options you want, you can get a 2:1 reduction, or 3.15:1 reduction. Meaning, you can go slow, or you can go really slow.

The CreeperBox requires the 2″ body lift or some floor modification to install. But it goes together like your normal Dana 20 t-case. Your stock T-case then bolts to the back of it and a shifter wire connects to the dash for easy engagement and disengagement.

P3 will need all the gearing it can get, so we ordered up a CreeperBox without delay. We opted to get a 2:1 reduction and then throw a 3.15:1 reduction into the transfer case. This will give us a total reduction of 6.3:1 in our transfer case and Creeper alone, then times that by 4.56 (gears in the axles) and the again by 2.45 (first gear in the TF727 3-speed auto) and you’ve got a reduction of 70.38:1 (Remember P3’s stock crawl was 27:1, so we’re way above that.)

Note we haven’t yet taken into effect the torque converter, which compounds the crawl from 1.5-2 times (some people argue with this amount). For grins, if we figure on the least amount of compounding, P3 will end up with 105.57:1. Holy cow that’s some crawl! It even gets more interesting if we figure the torque converter is giving us the equivalent of 2:1, which raises our over-all crawl to 140:76:1! That simply boggles the mind! (Now you’re understanding why we ordered the axles we did!

The obvious question is why go through all this for 4-wheeling. It is really necessary? For most, people’s wheeling, which is nothing more than tooting around in the forest, this sort of modification is not necessary. But when it comes to extreme wheeling, the kind that involves climbing VW sized rocks and competing in national events, the more crawl you have, the slower you can approach an obstacle. This also gives you an all-new level control of both the power and speed in which you conquer the obstacle.

This crawl isn’t needed most of the time, but that’s why we’re using the Creeper Box. You only engage it when you want it. Let say your pulling stumps and you just cant get your Scout to have enough power to hank the stump out, simply engage the Creeper box and idle it out of the ground! For P3, who has an owner set on Top Truck Challenge (where you have to pull a dump truck up a hill), the CreeperBox will allow that extra bit of gearing to make the “grade”.

Kudos to Mike and the Mr. Scout team for designing and building such an awesome component for us Scout guys. If you’d like more information, or would like to buy a Mr. Scout CreeperBox, contact Mike/Mr. Scout at 541-688-3232

With the CreeperBox and transfer case installed, its time to put in the axles and build the suspension. Remember, we could not do this without the CreeperBox and transfer case in place. “Why?” you ask. Because we needed to know where the transfer case outputs were going to be in order to set the pinion angles on the Dynatrac D60s.

Oh, in case you are wondering what assembly grease we used, we used Amsoil’s Multi Purpose Synthetic Grease for sticking all the pieces together before and during installation. We love this stuff and we recommend using it when you are in need of some greased parts. For P3, we used Amsoil’s products in every mechanical part needing lube (axles, transfer case, CreeperBox, TF727 Auto, and engine).

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