[Kevin Sevcik]

Adam,

Removing a gear stage is probably your best bet, then. The smartest move would be to remove a stage and have the machine shop mill or lathe down the ring gear to make it shorter. The quickest way, however, would be to remove the planets from a stage and weld that stage's sun gear to that stage's planet carrier/ the next stage's sun gear. As long as you clamp everything up straight and true, this should work just fine. If you've got a Globe to burn, I'd try this first for a quick fix.