Not sure what led up to it. I was just cruising along when the rear began to make a "tacka-tacka-tacka" under load or coast and it got louder and louder.

I limped it back to work and pulled the diff cover and there were two broken teeth on the pinion. The oil looked good, no other damage and the teeth had fallen to the bottom and weren't ground up .

That was a blessing for sure.

Looks like it will be parked for a couple of days. I ordered a new set of gears and THIS time I didn't order "value line" gears, lol -- not the way I've treated them.

Offroading hard with 2WD is very hard on the rear axle. My setup was perfect and there even used to be pics of it on here.

I guess that pin will be in from Auburn so I can put that in there when I do this on the weekend. What a pain.

When I finally get the ring an pinion out, I'll post pics for sure.

 

i think you did something your not telling us about! j/k

 

Oh that it were true, lol. If you think about it, I post all my failures as well as successes.

It would be better to my peace of mind if there were something I could put my finger on other than my foot-to-the-floor offroading style that was necessitated by being 2WD when everyone else if 4WD.

Usually, it takes a big engine to break stuff like this. My 3.0 should be proud, lol.

I bought Motive Gear stuff this time, the "Performance Line" or whatever it's called. Much better than the low end Yukons I bought last time. Yukons top end stuff is very very good and their junk is good -- for junk.

But every time I cut corners with what I buy, I regret it. This is just one more thing I did years ago that I wish I'd done differently.

 

Dang, sorry to hear that John. Whenever the mechanics figure out what is wrong with the Bronco's engine, I hope to try out a little four wheeling and see how it handles on the sands. Be forewarned, I may be picking your brains for advice on gears, haha.

 

Damn I was about to go with some Yukons from Ranger Station... but now that you say this I might as well go with the motive gears. :(

 

Hey, Rob, I just answered your PM. Yukon makes some good gears and it's not entirely certain it wasn't a fluke (you can always get a bad gear from anyone), my setup somehow, the abuse I gave them -- whatever.

Yukon makes two lines of gears and the top of the line stuff is known to be good.

I know people who have run the value gears with zero problems.

 

Here's the eBay seller: good rep. I got 4.56 8.8 Motives for $169 and free shipping. I'm in a hurry so it may or may not be the best deal -- but it seems like a good one at any rate.

http://stores.ebay.com/BRENSPEED

 

Looks like a great deal but all I'm seeing is 4:10's. I was leaning more towards 4:56's too... Also, I'm not sure what the spline is on my new rear diff... :(

 

Nice. Well, the Motives aren't bad -- allegedly. Have any comments on that, Mark? I haven't heard anything bad about them.

And Rob, send the eBay vendor a question. They sell a LOT of gears and chances are he has them but just hasn't put up new auctions yet.

I was running 4.56's that I broke, and I was going to use a set of 4.10's that I THOUGHT I had temporarily -- but left the pinion in the axle I gave to Tom Barcia so I don't have it here. I emailed the vendor to see if I can upgrade my shipping for a fee if he hasn't sent it yet.

I have 4.56's in the front, so the rear is getting 4.56's again -- all that was a response to a PM'd question from Rob.

 

Now that's sweet. I know Reider Racing. I wish we had shops like that out here. You'd think with the population density we'd have more of that somewhere near me -- but they're all a bit further away. I won't even tell you what the guy at the local speed shop wanted for a set of 4.56 gears and install kit, lol. It was a bit much.

Well, less than the absolute best is on the table for me. The Motives still get great reviews by people who abuse their crap, so I'll be fine with them.

That's a nice price though for good stuff with the kits and all. We need some places like that out here!

 

Nice! Brenspeed is practically my neighbor! good company, they build some wicked cars...

Maybe you got something else floating in there that caused them to break?

they were used gears i take?

 

Came up on jawsgear and it looks like they got a good package for my truck. Gonna grab the 456's, does it look like the install kit has all the necessities?

http://www.jawsgear.com/product_info...oducts_id=1871

 

No, Zach. Brand new 2-3 ysars ago when I put them in. I'll post what I find during the teardown -- anything's possible. I won't be doing it now until the weekend though. I did have OTHER things planned to work on this weekend, but this obviously takes precedence, lol.

Brenspeed is still cheaper, Rob. I got what you're talking about for $243. Just write or call them and see what they say. That's the basics.

Are you doing this yourself? Do you have the tools you need? The main thing is an appropriate press to remove/install the bearings, a beam-type (non-"clicker") torque wrench that reads to 20 or 50 inch-pounds, and a dial indicator with a magnetic base. A micrometer is sometimes helpful as well to sort the shims when you need to.

 

why do you "need" to offroad in 2wd instead of 4 wheel?

 

he does not have 4wd

 

He has a 2wd that is slowly "growing up" into a 4wd

 

oh i just thought cuz he did a sas he had 4x4, that explains it.

 

Yes, Kevin -- I'm a mental case, but not that kind of mental case, lol.

The next job is to rebuild the transmission with a different tailshaft so I can mate up the transfer case. 4x2 and 4x4 transmissions are identical except for the output shaft and tail housing. Once that's done, I can mount the t-case and move aggressively into finishing the 4x4 conversion. The SAS was only stage 1.

 

Hmmm... this suggests something I've always suspected: my truck will grow up before I will...

 

i dont know if this will help you but this guy parts out rangers and explorers all the time and is only one town over, if you need something give him a call, i havent dealt with him myself yet but he is always posting on craigslist with ranger and explorer parts and pretty cheap too


here is his ad link
http://cnj.craigslist.org/pts/596116990.html

 

btw i followed the custom gauge colors on your car domain for my g/f integra, what a pain in the a$$ but it looks great, thanks for the write up and idea.

 

Wow, great! Glad to hear it's useful with other vehicles than Rangers.

Thanks for the link, Kevin. With the SAS/4WD conversion, I'm constantly "surprised" to find I need some piece or another, lol.