My 1992 is in need of gears for whenever I lift the front and put on 31's. Right now my truck has 3.27 gears and an open rear diff (gutless even with the 4.0L lol). The rear end is easy since I am going to find a 3.73 rear end out of a Ranger with limited slip preferably. There are tons of junkyards around my area let alone lots of craigslist adds with the setup that I want. The problem now comes to the front. Just buying gears alone for a Dana 35 is way expensive, plus the gears have to be reverse rotation which makes them even more expensive. So my question is, can I just get a Dana 35 Chunk out of an Explorer or Ranger (pre-97) and just bolt it right up? That would be awesome and once again I would be able to find one relatively easy at a junkyard around my area. Thanks in advance for the help!

 

With 31" tires you probably want to go with 4.10 ratio, that would be actual 3.70 ratio allowing for tire size
3.73 with 31" tires would be 3.37 actual, so not much of a change from 3.27

Just buy the Dana front axle and swap the gears

 

I would prefer 4.10s for sure. But being able to find 4.10s in a Dana 35 is going to be tough. Did explorers have the Dana 35 in them until 1997 too? I have 235/75r15s right now and my truck runs great unless I'm towing uphill. But thanks for the response. Definitely food for thought.

 

Dana 35 was used in many vehicles, read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_35

Just as a heads up
"In 1998, the Ford Ranger went to a Dana 35 SLA front axle.
The Dana 35 SLA switched from a reverse rotation gear to standard rotation gear.
The gears in a 1997 and older Ranger/Explorer will not work in the 1998 and newer Rangers."

 

Right on. I can say I never knew that they had a Dana 35 in Dakotas and Durangos too. More donor vehicles, nice! Well thanks for the help. Sounds like I just need to find the set up I want in junkyard truck/SUV and take it all at one time. Then just pull the axle shafts out of the front (my automatic lockers are toast anyways), take out my chunk, put the new chunk up front and then reassemble. Rear end will be just a direct bolt in swap.