Who makes the best rear end gears?
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Kdubslugga
Active Member
Definitely Ford. I've heard from several people that their gears are so close in tolerances you can take a ring out of one rear end and put it in another rear with a different pinion and it'll be just fine (assuming they're the same ratio of course).
I've heard the same, but I've also heard that FRPP has recently changed their gear maker and the tolerances aren't as close as they used to be. Have no idea if that is true or not.
My car has FRPP gears, I've probably put 20,000 miles on my 3.73s with no problem.
giddyup306
Founding Member
- Oct 22, 2002
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Ford Racing are probably the most common. I toured Eatons plant once, and I was impressed. They might be another option.
as long as we had the pinion depth right and didnt change the carrier we were able to use the stock ford shims with the ford racing gears. but this was about 5 years ago
Make sure whoever you buy them from that the gears are american made, Ive also heard of american companies that are shipping thier work to china, so you have to watch out. Just because your buying them through an american company dosent mean they are made here
You know, I was at Ace Hardware the other day, fishing through the fasteners because I needed some stuff for the car. I noticed that all the stainless bolts were looking hazy and had rough edges on the threads, not the kind of quality I'm used to when buying nuts and bolts from them. Looked on the box, and sure enough they were made in China. After that, I started fishing around some of the other types of fasteners, and everything I looked at was made in China. And these were "American" threads, not metric! That blew me away. Even the nuts and bolts we buy these days are made in China.
I didn't look at the grade 8 hardware. I should have, that's what holds a lot of my suspension and brakes together. I'm gonna lose sleep if that stuff was made in China.
Plenty of American companies manufacture in china...and the quality sucks.
My company does this, and I just caught them forging inspection reports and material certs (subpar, weaker steel). Its kinda funny because I think a 6 year old could have faked this data better. Needless to say....interesting day at work today dealing with the fallout.
Don't buy Chinese anything...keep it in the us
if the company i work for made everything in the US no one could afford our stuff.
yea i buy alot of stuff from ace too, and one time i got home, i had a nut that would not thread, the threads were totall junk, so now whatever i buy there i make sure that the threads are good before i leave. Its amazing how much quality varies from bolt to bolt. The only way to get a quality fastener is to buy one from a dedicated fastener supplier
Beasty306GT
Active Member
I work for an engineering consulting company, and one of our biggest corporate customers has a note on their material specifications that reads something like "Do not accept X material from China due to liability reasons". That's not exactly it, but it's something along those lines. It basically says purchasing can accept material from ANY country other than China.
That's the catch-22. I've said it before, you literally can't pay an American worker low enough to justify American manufacturing. No way could you sell stuff for anything near the same price if it was made here. That's why I don't see how all these politicians trying to bring manufacturing back to the States are ever going to succeed.
Me too, been burned more than once. I inspect every nut, bolt, washer, etc I buy from there now, and thread them together in the same way I plan to use them.
Edit: Sorry for the huge derailment, haha.
Stever89
5 Year Member
So..... (dumb question on the way, and sorry for the hijack)
I have 2.73 gears in a stock 8.8 rear. If I buy a genuine set of Ford Racing 3.55 ring and pinion gears, I have a good chance of everything mating up properly? I know there's more to it than just swapping them out, but on general principles, it's usually ok? I see these master bearing kits, should I buy one of those too?
I have 2.73 gears in a stock 8.8 rear. If I buy a genuine set of Ford Racing 3.55 ring and pinion gears, I have a good chance of everything mating up properly? I know there's more to it than just swapping them out, but on general principles, it's usually ok? I see these master bearing kits, should I buy one of those too?
Trust me, I try to avoid Chinese manufacturers when I can, but corporate always pushes us to transfer to them. I can almost guarantee upper management gets kickbacks for this.
But I always prototype with local us manufacturers, and their work is always #1 but pricier. When comes time to mass produce there is the corporate push to the cheaper Chinese vendor in which is a nightmare.
I just spent 6 months redesigning a part because it was "unmanufacturable" according to the Chinese vendor. I told them to use better quality steel and problem would be solved but they stated it all does this.
Since we were in a pinch, I ordered from us backup and they had No issue at all.
Honestly, not everyone in the US can be a CEO, or a lawyer or doctor. If we keep sending manufacturing jobs oversees, all the support jobs will eventually follow. We are just screwing ourselves. But it's hard to bring it back with the price of labor here. And of course, we all see what happens when you try to convince a union to give something up.
Huge derailment....I'm sorry
I hear ya, Mike. One funny story I was always told by one of my previous bosses was about a jet-turbine housing (cylindrical) that had two groups of radial holes, one clocked vertical and one horizontal, that he helped design at one of HIS previous jobs. For whatever reason they had a Chinese shop make this part, and the housings came back with the two groups of holes right next to each other, not clocked 90* apart. The Chinese's argument was that the drawing for the part had no 90* dimension on it. :nutkick:
What I was told (back in the day) is that with FRPP gears, you can reuse the same size shim on the pinion gear, from the stock gears to the FRPP ones. You still have to check backlash and shim the carrier side-to-side to get the gears within spec.
What I was told (back in the day) is that with FRPP gears, you can reuse the same size shim on the pinion gear, from the stock gears to the FRPP ones. You still have to check backlash and shim the carrier side-to-side to get the gears within spec.
Stever89
5 Year Member
rd
Founding Member
Ford gears for sure.
Have installed Motive, and they came marked with a pinion depth, and they work fine also. Made in Italy also, and work well.
Not sure of others.
Have installed Motive, and they came marked with a pinion depth, and they work fine also. Made in Italy also, and work well.
Not sure of others.
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