Gear change questions

[craveman85]

I've got an 8.8 for my 2008 rwd 4 cylinder that I plan on changing gears in and adding new bearings. I've read that if you use Ford racing gears and bearings then you don't need to use a pinion depth gauge and such. Have any of you had any personal experience with this working like Ford says? I plan on putting in either 4.30 or 4.56 and running 245/75r16s. I have a lot of hills and tow my boat a lot so either of those should be better than what I'm running now.

 

[tinman_72]

Sorry, you always have to use "pinion depth gauge and such" regardless of which brand gears you use. I have heard of people using the same shims as was taken out but I have never seen that work firsthand.

 

[French-connection]

I just did a full rebuild on my rear axle.
I followed the Ford installation instructions and things worked out quite well.
You'll definitely need to set it up taking measurements for backlash and wear pattern (which will determine pinion depth).
My biggest problem was to actually add the shims to preload the carrier bearings. If you can make a final single shim in the correct thickness for each side, it'll save you some headaches.
I'd also say that since you'll change gear size, your previous setup becomes obsolete and you really have to measure everything to avoid any gear whining once the axle is back in action.
There are a couple good videos out there that give good pointers on the rebuild.
One good tip is to grind the ID of the old inner pinion bearing so it slides on the new shaft without press fit. It'll make the task to set and adjust the pinion depth much easier.

Olivier

 

[Captain Ledd]

You don't NEED a depth gauge, but it will save some time playing with shims until you get it right. I never used one on mine and I've put a good 30k on it.

Start with the original shim stack and go from there.

 

[adsm08]

The reason you don't "need" the pinion depth gauge with Ford gears (and I do not understand why this tool supposedly doesn't work with aftermarket brands of gears) is that you install the pinion with a "setup bearing" on it, then bolt a tube in place of the carrier, and use a set of feelers to measure the distance between the pinion and the tube. That measurement tells you the shim you need.

It's not that you don't need to take a reading, you just use a different set of tools.