That is an interesting tip. I hadn't heard of the $60 Cummins setup. I'll have to look into that.
Make sure the output shaft splines have the same pressure angle as the planetary setup. They changed a few times over the years.
I had not paid attention to the splines before since I had never opened up a late model 727 but it turns out that two of my cores are from '78. So as I was taking things apart and comparing them I had a chance to look at the different pressure angles. The parts will fit together wrong so a person has to be careful if you're working with a mixed bag of parts.
I'm slowly developing a plan of attack. Since I have the parts on hand I think I'll build a second trans for the Duster using the best of the spare parts plus a mixture of aftermarket stuff. I'm going to go with a steel drum, an ultimate sprag, a 4.2 lever, a late model 5 gear steel front pinion, and then sprinkle in a few lightweight parts. I have a nice output shaft from the '78 truck trans as well as a really nice pump and front hub with the wide bushing.
