Before you just pop off on an international off-roading trip, you need to do the most that you can to make sure your drivetrain will survive the trip. This means upgrading what you think you need to, and replacing anything that could possibly wear out, even if it is still good. Our truck had only 80,000 miles on it at the time of shipment, but we still replaced every potentially worn drivetrain piece we could. The automatic tranny was still functioning fine, but we certainly didn't want to take any chances and had it reworked by Orange County Transmissions. The folks there added a few hop-ups and firmed up the shifts, while they rebuilt the entire unit. It's a good thing too, because they told us the tranny was hanging on by a thread and would've busted in just another couple hundred miles. That would not have been a pleasant surprise thousands of miles away from the nearest Super Duty tranny service center.
Once the tranny was in, we headed to South Bay Truck & 4x4 to finish off the rest of the drivetrain. We pulled every U-joint in the truck and replaced it with a new one. The driveshafts were sent out to be completely rebuilt, and the axleshafts were checked to make sure they were in perfect condition. We even added new ball joints just to be safe. When we pulled the front differential cover off, we found that we had the Dana 50 axle. The Dana 50 is a sad axle that has the housing and looks just like a Dana 60, but carries a Dana 44-sized differential. Because of this, we made sure to leave it open so as to take as much stress as possible off the little diff and 30-spline axles.
We pulled the front Dana 50 and rear 10 1/2-inch Visteon differentials to match the gears to the tires. We chose 4.56 gears in each for the best match of gear strength. When you start dropping to lower gear ratios (numerically higher) than 4.56, the pinion gear head starts to become smaller and therefore weaker, according to some experts. For the ultimate in no-fuss traction, we dropped a Detroit Locker into the rear axle. The automatic Detroit Locker has fewer potential failure points than a selectable locker, and has proven itself strong and reliable on countless trips for us.
To keep the gears cool, we installed some Pro Comp aluminum diff covers on both the front and rear axles. The polished diff covers allowed for more fluid capacity, and acted as a heat sink while being much thicker than the stamped factory diff covers. | 
One of the most important drivetrain upgrades we made was to get rid of the factory unit bearings that come on Ford Super Dutys from the factory. If these trucks have a weak point, then this is it. At 80,000 miles, ours were already going out... |
...Dynatrac makes a Free Spin hub kit for the Fords (and Dodges too) that changes your front end to an older design with serviceable wheel bearings and seals. These can be serviced for longer life, and are easily replaceable. The Free-Spin kit comes with new spindles, bearings, 35-spline outer axleshafts, and either Dynatrac or Warn hubs. | 
The Dynatrac is great, and fits directly onto the Ford knuckle with little hassle, but you are expected to reuse your stock studs. Our suggestion is to ditch the originals and just run down to your Ford dealer for some new ones. |
Not only does the Dynatrac kit put you on standard wheel bearings with selectable hubs, but it also retains the ABS sensor design allowing your brakes to function as they always have. The Dynatrac kit is expensive, at around $1,700, but it is well worth it, considering that repair and replacement on the factory nonserviceable units is almost $2,000. | |
You want to make sure you can see everything well during the entire trip. Of course, you need some good lights to see at night, but this goes for more than just lighting, as you need to have an excellent pair (not the $5 ones) of windshield wipers which won't harden up and crack and to be able to move mud off your windshield. Wipers don't seem like a big deal, but if you can't see clearly, your chances of mishaps increase dramatically.
The Fab Fours bumper comes with included Hella foglamps and turn indicator lights to install in the pre-fabbed holes in the bumper. The foglights are closer to the ground, so they will light up the surrounding road well, and since they are recessed in the bumper, they have a good chance of surviving the trip. | 
For the top of the bumper we chose to run three Daystar 6.3-inch 1000 Series lights with high-impact plastic housings. The Fab Fours bumper does not come drilled for lights as there are so many different configurations to put on, but they leave plenty of mounting space to add auxiliary lights. The Daystar lights come in larger 7- and 8-inch sizes, but we chose the smaller versions so we could tuck three under the prerunner hoop. |
Don't fool yourself into thinking nothing major will happen. You have to be prepared to rescue your vehicle out of a river, should it be necessary. Therefore, a winch and recovery equipment were necessities to pack.
Of course a winch was in order. T-Max let us try out one of its winches some months back, and we liked it so much that we decided we'd trust it to tow us through our journey where failing wasn't an option. We ordered up the EW-12500W Outback winch. It features a 6.6hp motor that will yank a single line pull of 12,500 pounds with 3/8-inch steel cable. These winches feature MOSFET technology in a water-resistant enclosure instead of solenoids and will give us a better chance of successful winching even with the front end under water. | 
There is not always a tree to winch yourself to. Knowing this, we packed a Pull Pal winch anchor under the back seat to bury in the ground should we get stuck. For those of you who have never used a Pull Pal, let us tell you how ingenious those things are. We buried it in our front yard and used it to tow a Jeep uphill just to try it out. The structure of the Pull Pal puts force at the shovel tip/plow when a winch applies pulling force to the attachment point, and subsequently drives the plow down into the ground. This will be our savior if we get stuck in a giant field somewhere. |
One of the smartest things you can do when you get a spur in your ass to do some crazy trip like this is to plan well in advance. If you can finish the truck up early, you can take time to drive it around, test it off-road, and make sure that everything you did to the truck is working well. Once our truck was finished, we immediately took it off-roading and put 500 miles on it before we put it on the boat. If something was going to happen, we wanted it to happen within U.S. borders. If you rush to finish a project just before your deadline, you leave yourself open to disaster.
Hopefully, we won't be eating our own words in two days when we arrive to meet the truck. We'll report back to you next month with how the Super Duty performed during the trip.