Rear gear install

jgunter · Feb 20, 2019

Hello I have a 1990 mustang lx 5.0 and I was looking for someone in the batesville Indiana area that does rear gear installs for a reasonable price

JimZim · Feb 20, 2019

jgunter said:
Hello I have a 1990 mustang lx 5.0 and I was looking for someone in the batesville Indiana area that does rear gear installs for a reasonable price

Why not do it yourself? All you may need is for someone to pull of the original pinion bearing and reuse it on the new set of gears if low milage or in good shape. I would recommend the Ford Performance Parts gearset. Also I would straighten out the old crush washer on the old pinion and reuse it. I shouldn't say that you would never, but it's not worth the effort to get a new crush washer to start for a first timer. The rest is easy and you could be coached. It not that bad and think of the pride you would have doing it yourself. Words from a fellow Hoosier...

mattmm04 · May 18, 2019

I bought a 3.73 rear gear set from AM.com and been going back and forth on whether to have a shop install the gears or do it myself. I'll need a press which I do have access to but I haven't done a rear gear before and I have lots of wrench time so doing this wouldn't be out of my realm. The main thing that stops me from making it a diy job is I don't have a lift and have read some have done it without a lift and said makes the job a bit more of a challenge and also the checking the backlash as I don't have a tool to check that.

Should I try to take it on myself or go ahead and get a shop to do it? It's a 98 gt and really don't want to jump on this and then have this car sitting waiting for me to get it right. I've called one shop so far before I got the gears and they said sometimes after installation, the backlash doesn't check out and everything has to be pulled again and shimmed to get the right backlash therefore they are ball parking $500. Ouch! But I want these gears in because I know it will make a world of difference as the current gear is 2.73....

jgunter · Jan 22, 2020

well my issue is that my car is a 1990 and I was wanting 3.73 so my driven gear in the transmission has to be changed from a 8 tooth to a 7 tooth for my speedo to be correct

02 281 GT · Jan 22, 2020

I most certainly would not recommend doing gears yourself if you're not planning to properly set them up, check back lash, etc.

I've been told this idea that you can replace your stock gear set with a Ford Racing set, reuse the original crush sleeve, and just slap it together because all Ford gears are machined the same. I let a friend of a friend do just that in my '86 GT around 2003 because I didn't know any better. He reused the original bearings and crush sleeve without checking backlash. Wouldn't you know it, it whined like crazy as soon as I drove it down the street.

If you slap in a new set of gears and don't have that problem, it's likely because you got lucky, nothing more.

I would recommend seeking out a local forum or club to see about places that can swap gears. Barring that, you could ask a local transmission shop to recommend a place. Some transmission shops can do gears, but you may pay more since that isn't their specialty.

To give you an idea of what it takes to set up new gears properly:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fARhE7v5Bg

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npUBF9Wj1Iw

It can be done by the layman with the correct tools.

mattmm04 · Jan 22, 2020

I chose not to do it myself mainly because I sold the car and bought a cobra. But I wouldn’t do it myself unless I had access to a lift and a weekend to do the job. The job is straightforward till you start checking clearances and backlash and found out that you may have to pull it all out 2 or 3 times or more till everything checks out.

I found shops around my area that would do the job from $375-$500. The $375 was a shop that worked on only mustangs. Unless you have time and a lift I wouldn’t take on this job myself personally after doing a bit of research

bird_dog0347 · Jan 22, 2020

I paid less than $200 I think for mine to be installed (perfectly) but I've got an IRS so I just took him the pumpkin and the new parts. With a SRA in the car on a lift maybe another $50-100 would be in order I think. Either way, the only two jobs on my fox I've paid anyone else to do is gears and alignment mainly cause I don't want to buy the tools to do them right.

02 281 GT · Jan 22, 2020

mattmm04 said:
I chose not to do it myself mainly because I sold the car and bought a cobra. But I wouldn’t do it myself unless I had access to a lift and a weekend to do the job. The job is straightforward till you start checking clearances and backlash and found out that you may have to pull it all out 2 or 3 times or more till everything checks out.

I found shops around my area that would do the job from $375-$500. The $375 was a shop that worked on only mustangs. Unless you have time and a lift I wouldn’t take on this job myself personally after doing a bit of research

That's a pretty good price. I got quoted (only labor) from a couple of recommended places in OKC ($400) and Fort Worth ($375) to do gears. A local place here in WF wanted $600 for labor alone.

JD1964 · Jan 22, 2020

jgunter said:
well my issue is that my car is a 1990 and I was wanting 3.73 so my driven gear in the transmission has to be changed from a 8 tooth to a 7 tooth for my speedo to be correct

Is this a manual T5 transmission or an AOD automatic.

jgunter · Jan 23, 2020

revhead347 · Jan 23, 2020

02 281 GT said:
I most certainly would not recommend doing gears yourself if you're not planning to properly set them up, check back lash, etc.

I've been told this idea that you can replace your stock gear set with a Ford Racing set, reuse the original crush sleeve, and just slap it together because all Ford gears are machined the same. I let a friend of a friend do just that in my '86 GT around 2003 because I didn't know any better. He reused the original bearings and crush sleeve without checking backlash. Wouldn't you know it, it whined like crazy as soon as I drove it down the street.

If you slap in a new set of gears and don't have that problem, it's likely because you got lucky, nothing more.

Dead on. Gear work sucks, even if you know what you are doing. You can shim all day and check with gear marking compound, but it takes forever. It takes a gear shop way less time because they have all the specialty tools that do the measurements dead on the first time.

You can get a useable driven gear for 3.73s with either a 7 or 8 tooth drive gear. I forget the tooth count, but on late model cars it tears up the driven gear after a period of time. Those gears aren't expensive. I would just keep buying driven gears when they go bad. Getting to that drive gear is not a short process. I swapped the drive gear to a 7 tooth on the Cobra when I had the T5 apart anyway. If the transmission didn't need work, I wouldn't have bothered.

Kurt

JD1964 · Jan 23, 2020

I changed my ratio to 3.73. I had the gears installed by someone familiar and equipped for the process.

I have a t5 too. I removed the gearbox pulled the tail and swapped the speedo drive gear myself. It wasn’t too bad of a job.

revhead347 · Jan 23, 2020

John Dirks Jr said:
I changed my ratio to 3.73. I had the gears installed by someone familiar and equipped for the process.

I have a t5 too. I removed the gearbox pulled the tail and swapped the speedo drive gear myself. It wasn’t too bad of a job.

I used to do T5 rebuilds as the bulk of our business. Being experienced, it's not too bad. However, for a new person, it's a lot of work. I'd rather put a new $15 speedo gear in every 20,000 miles.

Kurt

Rear gear install

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02 281 GT

Agreed...My wife has great Boobs

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Agreed...My wife has great Boobs

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there is enough sticking out to grab on to

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Apparently my ex-husband made that mistake.

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there is enough sticking out to grab on to

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Rear gear install

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