has anyone done a gear swap on their own?
 

....and had success with it? I know everyone says you're better off to have an experienced mechanic do it, but I'm curious to see if any first timers have successfully done one on their own. How hard is it?

Yes i did it in my 99 f150 it was a pain in the ass. But i will be doing it in my car aswell. YOu do need a dial indicator which costs around 100-180bucks for the tools your almost at the cost of a pro install. Think about it.

didnt you botch that....

I just did mine 2 weekends ago. There is absolutely no sound from the rear end at all. It is just as quiet as the factory gears. I went with 4.10's.

As stated you need a dial indicator. I measured my backlash before removal and upon reinstall just adjusted to that same measurement. Backlash is that little bit of slop (0.008) that you get between the ring gear and the pinion gear.

I bought FRPP gears which I believe are the best for the DIY crowd since the are factory Ford gears and fit as such. I reused the original shim under the pinion gear and the backlash measurements came out exact. The toughest part is crushing that darned crush sleeve. Good air tools are a must.

the shop i paid 200bucks screwed my first set of 4.10's up in my old truck.

its not too bad to do yourself. but 10,000 miles from now and some good hard launches and they will be alittle noisy. if your not scared go for it! i did it for school, and to be honest its just a pain in the ass trying to get all the right shims and get it all set up "right". with some patience and practice you really develop a touch for it, kinda like transmission work.

Thats what I thought....well if you do a good job on yours i'll pay you to redo mine when I get a new diff.....dont ask what I did to it.

Most of the really good wrenches I know still go to a pro to have gears set up. The guys you want doing it are the ones that can set bearing pre-load by feel. Doing it yourself without understanding what exactly to look for in a paint test is asking for trouble down the road.

Get thee to a pro. It's worth it to make sure the least often maintained part of your car is set up right to begin with.

I will more than likely end up taking it to a pro to have the gears done.

Does anyone know where I can find a good write-up on a gear install just to see what it entails? Thanks for the feedback. :punk:

THeres a reason there is a sticky on this..

https://mustangboards.com/general-te...ar-thread.html

I've read the sticky. I agree, chances are I would end up ****ing something up if I did it myself. I just wanted to see if anybody has done one themselves and got it right. Thanks for your help anyways.

mustang rears are alittle differant, but this is from someone i know and trust...

http://www.keliente.com/gears.htm

Am I really the only one who has successfully done this? Backlash backlash backlash, get it right and your in.

Ok Ok, another difficult part is if you don't get the shims correct the first time you have to remove the pinion bearing possibly ruining it several times before you get the backlash set right.

take it to a pro.

having a press is a must also or you wont be getting the bearing onto the pinon gear. But it takes time and you might have to pull the posi out a good number of times before you get the correct meshing on the gears (wear pattern).

A press isn't required. A nice hot-rodder's trick is to heat the bearing and cool the pinion enough so it just slides on. Of course if you screw up the shims or placement, you will need a press to take it off. Also, there are kits available consisting of bearings that have been honed enough to allow you to slide them on so it's easier to check backlash, etc. However, those bearings aren't to be used as bearings, just to check your measurements.