I did the Patrick's swap out on my '46 in 1997. I was already running a '54 235 with 16 x 7.00 tires to get as much road speed as i could. The 3:55 let's me cruise at 62 comfortably all day. The 235's got plenty of power to pull the taller rear end gearing. Also I'm 12 years into the swap with no problems whatsoever.
Frankly, in my opinion, the torque tube driveline was pretty poor engineering. Most people will tell you that a driveshaft should have two U-joints for vibration cancellation - the torque tube drivelines only have one. The other engineering problem is getting lube to the U-joint. I burned them up like crazy until I started partially filling the pipe tap on my heavy duty 4-speed with w140 when I do an oil change.
That said I like my trucks closer to original, so I kept the torque tube.
David Bush
