My truck slips the rear tires when it's wet, (too much torque and too light in the rear). Since I live in Portland, Oregon, it's wet A LOT!! I'd prefer to have traction so I'd like to have LSD's. I mentioned this too a mechanic friend of mine and he suggested getting the axels out of an Explorer, which should be easy to find at a You-Pull-It yard.

Vehicle: '97 Ranger XLT xtra cab 4.0L 4X4 stock, with 31 X 10.5 tires. 60k miles.

So my questions to the gurus are:
Will that work?
Do I need to look for specific years?
Will the disc brakes work without modifying anything?
Will they bolt on, or will I need to do any fab work?
Anything else I haven't thought of...?

 

Will it work? Yes its possible, im putting an explorer axle in my 98 today
Look for specific years? I would recommend find one with disk breaks with as low of miles as possible that has matching gears to yours and an LSD (not sure what year disk breaks started or when they switched to IRS)
Will the disk breaks work without modifying anything? Im not sure on your 97
will they bolt on, or will i need to do any fab work? You have to weld on new spring perches and new shock mounts since explorers where sprung under and ranger are sprung over.

It depends on what you do with your truck on which axle you should get. if you just use it as a daily driver with maybe a little off road i would just say find a ranger 8.8 axle with an LSD so that it bolts right in. but if you do a lot of off roading and are thinking about going with bigger tires now would be a good time for the explorer axle. Try searching this site there is ton of info on this subject.