went to pick and pull and pulled a rear end out of a 91 explorer. 8.8 inch 3L73 gears. got the rear end home and opened it up pulled the carrier and basically just did a swap with my rear end in my truck. works like a charm. if any one needs help with changing rear ends just post a reply

 

Disk brakes or drum?

 

drum

 

Oh ok, i was gunna ask how you did the e brake if you swapped to discs...

 

What did the axle cost ya? I'm looking at having mine rebuilt vs. swap out with a good used one.

 

well axle was 130 and i just took the carrier assembly out and swapped it. it was almost too easy. So if you have about 2 hours of free time i would consider doing the swap your self and not paying loads of bucks too go get it done. The hardest part of doing the swap was finding a rear axle with the gears i wanted. (actually was simple) so if you plan on doing it your self post back and i will try to help you as much as possible

 

I'm going to swap out the whole rear end if I do it, I don't plan on changing ratios if I don't have to, the main thing is the back lash, not bad until you put an 18' trailer with an inertial breaking system on it, then it's a pain sometimes.

I've read up on a rebuild, and I know enough to know it's something I don't want to do myself

Would you happen to know how hard it would be to swap out the 8.8 with a 9" by chance?

 

No 9" has a provision for the VSS sensor which your truck needs to run smooth.

Adrianspeeder

 

You can't swap for a 9" on a 95.
you need the tone ring in the diff to operate the ABS, and the speedo/odo. More importantly, if you have an automatic transmission, it provides the vehicle speed signal that participates in the control of the tranny.

Just stuffing a pre-set ring and pinion from another vehicle into your axle is a crap shoot. The pinion shims may be off and the side shims almost certainly will be. Be sure to confirm the backlash with a dial indicator and check the contact pattern with white grease and re-shim accordingly.

 

You just described the type of work I don't feel comfortable doing myself.

Time to bite the bullet I guess.

At least the shop I'll have do it knows their stuff, he does most of the racers around here, dirt and strip and they all swear by him.

Oddly his name is Strange I believe.

 

Im with you on this one. Those phrases scare me.

 

they scared me too at first but all i did was swap my carrier with the explorer carrier. The shims every is talking about are behind bearings i believe. so just dont remove any bearings. correct me if i am wrong. also i proved to myself how easy it was to swap carrier units.

 

The pinion shim is used to set the fore-and-aft location of the pinion gear. This is critical to good alignment and engagement of the gears. In the absence of a pinion setup tool, re-using the pinion shim from the target axle, NOT the donor, will give you about an 80% change of getting it right. The side shims adjust the carrier from side to side and control the ring gear engagement with the pinion. You MUST check backlash with a dial indicator and re-shim the sides as required to bring it into spec. Once that is done, you have to check the contact pattern on both the drive and coast faces of the gear with white grease. If the contact pattern is bad and the backlash is OK, then you have to tear it all apart again and re-shim the pinion.

It's not particularly difficult work but there is very, very little room for error.
If yours is aligned properly without checking anything, it's a near miracle.

 

Question:

The local salvage yard has an 8.8" from a 95 150 that was totaled (front end, side impact forward of the wheel) with 35K on the odometer. It has no significant backlash when I spin the yoke on the axle, which is the problem I'm trying to correct on my vehicle. Since it's a low mile part, how far out of whack could it be if it appears to be 100% better than what I have now?

 

Are you planning on swapping the entire axle or just the guts?

If it's the entire axle then as long as nothing's bent you should be OK. The setup of the diff is specific to the housing. The real question is: Why is yours shot? You might want to figure that out first.

If you're planning on pulling the R&P and carrier out and sticking it in your housing, you need to set it up. Don't even try that without a service manual.