Ok so I will be lifting my truck soon and adding 35"s. Everyone has said to use 4:56 gears. What is involved in regearing a ranger.

 

Well if your paying someone to do it you can expect about 1200 in labor. Im having mine done next week the front you have to drop your whole third member out

 

It's detail work. Besides the usual hand tools you need a micrometer/dial caliper gadget with a magnetic base to read lash. You also need some way to press bearings on and off. Cheap hydraulic presses are available for under $100 on sale, and then you need the bearing remover tool to go with it as well. There's some kind of hand tools to do the pressing on and off, but I'm not familiar with them. I do mine with a 12 ton press.

There's a lot of how-to's out there on gear replacement on the 8.8 and what not, so Google in this case will be your best friend. Trying to cover it all in a topic here would be just too much.

 

But is it possible to do it yourself? And how long could I run without regearing?

 

The rear is fairly "easy" to do. I did my rear and have been running with diff gears in the front for a year....... thats allways a possiblity. I think youll hate life with 35s and 4.10s it is possible tho just gonna be slow on take off