FINALLY Doing Gears, Forgetting Anything?

[HoustonGT]

Well, after a year of having the stang i'm finally getting some 3.73's. I got quoted by a shop and they said it'll be $420 including the gears and all fluids but not the Speedcal.
Anyways, the GT is at abit under 56k miles and i'm just wondering what all needs to be replaced when installing the gears since the diff is open anyways?
I know its all new shims, gear oil, speedcal to correct the speedo, friction modifier and stuff, but should i get the master bearing kit and change all of those out as well or should they be fine since im only at 56k? Also, would a t-lok rebuild kit be necessary at this point? I don't want to be stingy, but i also don't want to spend freakin $800 on a gear swap just because i replace everthing in the world.
Those of you that have done it, did you just buy the gears and replace the old shims with the new ones and call it a day? Thanks

 

[BooWFO]

I would go ahead and replace the bearings (if the shop will at no or small additional charge). The Tloc rebuild, does your car smoke both tires now? If not I would do it. Last time I priced I think parts were 50 bucks as for shop fees. No idea.

As someone that paid for a gear swap and bearing kit ( I hate gear lube smell and was extremely busy at work), and got ripped off by the shop. I will be doing my own again. I will say the price they quoted seems fair to me.

 

[BurningRubber]

It could go either way IMO. Chances are under 60k your bearings will be fine, they should be. However, a master bearing kit ranges from like 90-110 bucks.. so its sort of cheap insurance, probaly not much extra to do when its all apart anyway.

T-lock rebuild kits are pretty cheap, and it shouldnt cost any extra, or only a small amount to re-build it while the gears are out. I would do this, as they wear out with abuse and age. Im at 100k and its a hit or miss if its gonna spin both wheels, or just one.

 

[HoustonGT]

Well the master bearing kit is about 70 shipped and the t-lok rebuild kit is about 50 bucks and then another 70 for the extra labor. So its really about 210 extra for that stuff. Might as well i guess.

 

[BurningRubber]

Id do it again now rather than later. The bearings arent what I would worry about, its the t-lock thats gonna piss you off, lol.

But you really should do the bearings just in case.

 

[whyask]

weres a great place to order the said items, Im getting ready to do gears as well 4.10s as it may be, and would rather get the extra labor done now rather than play hit or miss down the road

 

[speedfreak98r]

Check your pm box HoustonGT

 

[steveb24]

the guy whos doing my gears in 2 weeks, and all he does is late model mustangs, told me "ive never seen a rear of a mustang in over 100 gear swaps where the bearings were shot". "yes, putting in new bearings is always good for anything, but for a gear swap im telling you that you wolnt need them".. this guy has been on the cover of mm&ff and 5.0mustangs and super fords for stangs that he built and tuned himself. i guess ill agree with him given his credentils, but im not gonna go as far to say NOBODY would ever need new bearings. just some food for thought.. and btw. im not gettin new bearings put in (66k)

 

[HoustonGT]

weres a great place to order the said items, Im getting ready to do gears as well 4.10s as it may be, and would rather get the extra labor done now rather than play hit or miss down the road

The t-lok rebuild kit is on cjponyparts.com and the rest is at americanmuscle.com (mustangtuning ). Free shipping and don't forget to put stangnet or mustangboards in the discount section for 5% off
Hope that helps.
Mike,
SEMPER FI

 

[96BlueStangGT]

I would buy the bearing rebuild kit. At 70k, my old bearings showed some wear. I didn't get the T-lok rebuild kit. If you're going to do it, you might as well do it right. It sounds like you have everything else in line.

 

[hotmustang331]

You know, its VERY simple to do youself . Just re-use the original pinion shim and swap the left carrier spacer to the right and visa versa. (The spacers that hold the carrier in position)
Remove the 3.27 ring, and throw on the new ring gear (bit tricky to get it on right, but its not hard)
Beat out the pinion gear and beat off the bearing using wedge chisels and get the shim thats under there. (or you can have a shop press it off)
Provided you were careful, just reuse the shim and bearing on your new pinion and beat it back into the rearend (screw the nut onto the pinion so it sets flush and you dont damage the threads when hitting it into place) . Last thing you do is place the carrier into position, slide your axles in with the C clamps and tighten down. Then check the slack...should be about eaxactly as much as the stock gears.

(note do this process also before you remove the stock gears, so you have a basis)
Take some news paper (or something simular), cut it into a half moon shape the size of the ring gear and run the paper through the gears...it should come out crinkled and formed to the shape of the gears, but NOT cut. If its cut then the carrier is too tight and you have to buy a shim kit. It should have simular slack/play as stock...you can tell if its overly loose or tight. Then put some greese onto the ring gear and run it around to check how deep the pinion is pushing into the ring...again should be very simular to stock.

Thats the brunt of it .

I went from a 3.27 to a 3.73 and thats ALL we had to do....as much play as the stock gears, but not too tight (it doesnt whine). The hardest part is getting the pinion gear out. Just buy the gears and some royal purple, and your good .

Your welcome, for writing another book I wanted to tell you about it, just so you have another option should you have the tools and bawls to try it

 

[03ghoststang]

You know, its VERY simple to do youself . Just re-use the original pinion shim and swap the left carrier spacer to the right and visa versa. (The spacers that hold the carrier in position)
Remove the 3.27 ring, and throw on the new ring gear (bit tricky to get it on right, but its not hard)
Beat out the pinion gear and beat off the bearing using wedge chisels and get the shim thats under there. (or you can have a shop press it off)
Provided you were careful, just reuse the shim and bearing on your new pinion and beat it back into the rearend (screw the nut onto the pinion so it sets flush and you dont damage the threads when hitting it into place) . Last thing you do is place the carrier into position, slide your axles in with the C clamps and tighten down. Then check the slack...should be about eaxactly as much as the stock gears.

(note do this process also before you remove the stock gears, so you have a basis)
Take some news paper (or something simular), cut it into a half moon shape the size of the ring gear and run the paper through the gears...it should come out crinkled and formed to the shape of the gears, but NOT cut. If its cut then the carrier is too tight and you have to buy a shim kit. It should have simular slack/play as stock...you can tell if its overly loose or tight. Then put some greese onto the ring gear and run it around to check how deep the pinion is pushing into the ring...again should be very simular to stock.

Thats the brunt of it .

I went from a 3.27 to a 3.73 and thats ALL we had to do....as much play as the stock gears, but not too tight (it doesnt whine). The hardest part is getting the pinion gear out. Just buy the gears and some royal purple, and your good .

Your welcome, for writing another book I wanted to tell you about it, just so you have another option should you have the tools and bawls to try it

this a short versioned write up on a How To:

 

[HoustonGT]

You know, its VERY simple to do youself . Just re-use the original pinion shim and swap the left carrier spacer to the right and visa versa. (The spacers that hold the carrier in position)
Remove the 3.27 ring, and throw on the new ring gear (bit tricky to get it on right, but its not hard)
Beat out the pinion gear and beat off the bearing using wedge chisels and get the shim thats under there. (or you can have a shop press it off)
Provided you were careful, just reuse the shim and bearing on your new pinion and beat it back into the rearend (screw the nut onto the pinion so it sets flush and you dont damage the threads when hitting it into place) . Last thing you do is place the carrier into position, slide your axles in with the C clamps and tighten down. Then check the slack...should be about eaxactly as much as the stock gears.

(note do this process also before you remove the stock gears, so you have a basis)
Take some news paper (or something simular), cut it into a half moon shape the size of the ring gear and run the paper through the gears...it should come out crinkled and formed to the shape of the gears, but NOT cut. If its cut then the carrier is too tight and you have to buy a shim kit. It should have simular slack/play as stock...you can tell if its overly loose or tight. Then put some greese onto the ring gear and run it around to check how deep the pinion is pushing into the ring...again should be very simular to stock.

Thats the brunt of it .

I went from a 3.27 to a 3.73 and thats ALL we had to do....as much play as the stock gears, but not too tight (it doesnt whine). The hardest part is getting the pinion gear out. Just buy the gears and some royal purple, and your good .

Your welcome, for writing another book I wanted to tell you about it, just so you have another option should you have the tools and bawls to try it

Check CT NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

 

[BennyBlown2v]

Take some news paper (or something simular), cut it into a half moon shape the size of the ring gear and run the paper through the gears...it should come out crinkled and formed to the shape of the gears, but NOT cut. If its cut then the carrier is too tight and you have to buy a shim kit. It should have simular slack/play as stock...you can tell if its overly loose or tight. Then put some greese onto the ring gear and run it around to check how deep the pinion is pushing into the ring...again should be very simular to stock.

LOL that's how you set the gear depth on an RC car C'mon, a dial indicator is only like 40 bucks, free if you rent it.

 

[CobraRed_96_GT]

the guy whos doing my gears in 2 weeks, and all he does is late model mustangs, told me "ive never seen a rear of a mustang in over 100 gear swaps where the bearings were shot". "yes, putting in new bearings is always good for anything, but for a gear swap im telling you that you wolnt need them".. this guy has been on the cover of mm&ff and 5.0mustangs and super fords for stangs that he built and tuned himself. i guess ill agree with him given his credentils, but im not gonna go as far to say NOBODY would ever need new bearings. just some food for thought.. and btw. im not gettin new bearings put in (66k)

+1, the guy who did my rear end for $200 said that he's never seen a set of bearings that wern't pretty much perfect. Mine were perfect and i have 105k miles on the clock. Didn't even use my install kit, sold it.

 

[hotmustang331]

LOL that's how you set the gear depth on an RC car C'mon, a dial indicator is only like 40 bucks, free if you rent it.

But it works . A guy we know that was a funny car mechanic/driver back in the 80s (he was in the world finals) told us about that and said "those guys can keep their gauges, I dont need them....this method allows me to get the gears perfect and iv never had a problem or any whining"

So thats how we do it, we have done 5 different rearends this way and the only one thats whines is my dads 00 V6. And thats because it DID cut the paper, but we decided to see what would happen just for the heck of it lol...drove it like less than a mile and sure enough it whined. SO we parked it and were going to swap the carrier spacers the next day to fix it. WELL my sister came over and drove off to another town....we came home and were like WTH! Called her and she brought the car back, but it was too late...it wore the whine into the gears. We switched and its getting better over time now, but I doubt it will ever go away. All other types of rears that we did CORRECTLY have 0 whine (8 inch/9inch/8.8). $40 is $40 I can use that elsewhere .

 

[hotmustang331]

Check CT NOT GONNA HAPPEN!

SNIP SNIP!

 

[steveb24]

+1, the guy who did my rear end for $200 said that he's never seen a set of bearings that wern't pretty much perfect. Mine were perfect and i have 105k miles on the clock. Didn't even use my install kit, sold it.

yea, some ppl chose to be anal or listen to everyone else. ive sold a bearing kit and c/c plates so far cause i did, and lost money on both of them.