ranger 8.8, is this worth buying?

[William Spitzer]

ok, so a little bit of background, 98 ranger 3.0 5 speed, 3:73 gears 7.5 inch open differential. i want to get a ranger 8.8 L/S that i can just bolt in and go. im really not that worried about disc brakes, im fine with a good set of drums, and im not a very good welder, so the explorer axle isnt really for me. i went to the junkyard and found this, 8.8 L/s with 3.73 gears, it has superlift shocks and liftblocks allready on it, so i would get them too. he said he wanted $175 for it, before i opened the cover and found this.

so, somebody allready got the bed, so heres the axle

now for the bad, 3 teeth on one of the spider gears are damaged,

and one of the teeth on the ring gear is chipped,

so, my question is what should i do? should i move on and abandon this axle? should i try to get it for cheaper and fix the spider gears? if so what should i pay for it? or would it be ok? the truck it was in only had 80,000 miles on it if that matters. my dad has a brand new set of spider gears for an 8.8 he said he would give me. how difficult are new clutches to put in? thanks for any information anyone can provide.

 

[dangerranger83]

I would pass it up and keep looking IMO. It may be 80,000 miles but who knows how hard of miles they were.

 

[William Spitzer]

transmission went out, and the whole cab is filled with mud, i have a pretty decent idea what happened. lol

 

[Sunk]

Keep looking.