Aef plus gearbox help

[saviogimmi]

Hi everyone I know this has been asked a million times!!!
I knew I had a 1.9 aef diesel in the van, it has always only cruised at 55 mph max on motor ways as it revs its nuts off any faster! I always thought it was down to the gearbox having wrong ratios. After three years I finally found the gearbox code which is 8E, according to other posts this is a good gearbox for the aef, the only difference from the 1.6 td gearboxes is the diff ratio, what is holding my van up! Sounds like the engine has more to give. It did come with alloys that looked big but the tyres say 205/70/r14 which is right according to my vw sticker on the door. Any ideas
Thanks

[Aidan]

8E is virtually indistinguishable from a 1.6TD 3H almost same final drive almost same 5th gear
so maybe the 8E isn't actually an 8E inside or you expect too much - do you have a calibrated rev counter ? Do you know it's revving out or does it just sound like it ? And I take it there's no clutch slip ?
only way to check what is inside the box is to take the bellhousing off and check the crown and pinion ratio
there are plenty of bitsa boxes out there which aren't what they say on the outside, including a good few of mine which is why I give people full paperwork with them and say to keep it with the van/box if sold as only way to tell it's different and all my boxes are stamped with my marks and job number so can be traced back to my computer records until the hd dies, I really must back that dataset up

[saviogimmi]

Well it will do 65-70 , but the revs sound way way too high, I wouldn't be happy driving at that speed unless I could go up another gear!!! I never thought about it until I drove my cousins t25 which has a 1.6 diesel, and it happily got to 65-70 cruising and felt much more responsive! I don't want a flying machine but driving long distances at 55 is a little tedious!