The 3spd Stak Monsterbox TC is/was a good product, much beefier than an Atlas. The one on mine was old and beat up, and popped out of gear a lot. The gear popping can normally be cured by replacing the center shaft with one sold by Trailworth Fab. My case was an earlu model where the shaft dimensions were different than the later models. I wouldn't be worried about buying a Jeep with a fairly recent Stak case if I found on a test wheeling ride that it stayed in gear.
I sold my old case as-is to Tim Kirk, who did a complete rebuild (e.g., replaced a broken gear and got all new bearings). He's going to run it in his buggy, which hopefully will be done this summer and we can see whether the pop-out problem still exists. At least now Tim knows all the internals if there would be a problem with someone's case.
I liked the Stak more than the new Atlas - much easier to shift and has 5-1 ratio, plus you could do front digs in high w/o breaking it, unlike the Atlas. Stak would also tolerate higher HP, although that's not much of an issue for the types of rigs we have.
As for the 4.0, I can tell you mine is pretty sluggish on the road on my TJ that's about 1000 lbs heavier than stock.
Topic: contemplating a trade - help me determine its value (Read 1177 times)
