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DIY Gear Swap - Step by Step Pic's - Rubicon 4.88

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Great write up, except I didn't see you paint the gears for wear pattern?
There’s a few steps I didn’t grab on camera. I answered this a few posts above.
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Quite impressive write-up OP, I saw you were going to do this from the gearing thread and was anticipating it! Very detailed and extremely photo loaded, which is awesome. I however am not confident enough myself to take on this task, but I do highly appreciate your write-up and wanted to just say, THANK YOU!
 

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My favorite part? Bandage with "Fuck" written on it. Pretty bad when you can feel your heart beating in your wound!
 

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Excellent write up! Thanks for taking the time to do this.

How it drives? Are you running 37s? Auto or manual? 3.6l or 2.0l?
 

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Excellent write up! Thanks for taking the time to do this.

How it drives? Are you running 37s? Auto or manual? 3.6l or 2.0l?
It drives better than stock. The little extra gearing to compensate for the 37's is actually lower than the 4.10's and 33's. It's nice to be able to crawl in 4 HI without stalling. I couldn't do that before like I can now.

37" STT PRO, 6-SPD, 3.6L
 

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Wow, only one cut finger not bad! great job.
 

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@chevymitchell

Stupid Question time:

Just finished my 500 mile break in and I'm about to change the gear oil. I have the same diff covers you do. Which fill hole in the cover did you use? Upper or lower? I can't find anything that tells me which one to fill to...
 

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@chevymitchell

Stupid Question time:

Just finished my 500 mile break in and I'm about to change the gear oil. I have the same diff covers you do. Which fill hole in the cover did you use? Upper or lower? I can't find anything that tells me which one to fill to...
The raised secondary fill plug is for more oil capacity for those high pinion (front) and high pinion angle applications on the rear when pinion is angled up from large lifts. If your lift is under 3 inches and you haven't adjusted your pinion angle you would use the lower plug on rear and upper plug on front.
 
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@chevymitchell

Stupid Question time:

Just finished my 500 mile break in and I'm about to change the gear oil. I have the same diff covers you do. Which fill hole in the cover did you use? Upper or lower? I can't find anything that tells me which one to fill to...
There are no stupid questions... well, there is, but this isn't one of them.

The front differential is a high pinion. This means the pinion rides higher on the ring gear. The rear is a low pinion differential. If you look at them both, you can see what I'm talking about. In the front, you will fill to the top hole and in the rear you will fill to the bottom hole.

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The raised secondary fill plug is for more oil capacity for those high pinion angle applications from large lifts. If your lift is under 3 inches and you haven't adjusted your pinion angle you would use the lower plug.
This is incorrect. Please see my post above.
 

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So no issues with bearings? My installer had to use a press for the pinion bearing. It wouldn’t come off.

So that’s the only bearing I had to buy
 
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So no issues with bearings? My installer had to use a press for the pinion bearing. It wouldn’t come off.

So that’s the only bearing I had to buy
All of the bearings with the exception of the pinion tail bearing will need a tool to remove. You can use a differential bearing puller, a bearing splitter, and/or a hydraulic press.

The pinion head bearing has a tendency to come off in pieces if you don't have the right tool or try to make the wrong tool work. The cage itself will get pulled off leaving the inside race.

Even when this happens, bearings really aren't a problem. You can always cut them and then hit them hard with a chisel punch and they crack right open; super easy. They slide off right after that and then you press on new ones.

The biggest assembly mistake I've seen is damaged bearing cages or the bearing wasn't pressed to stop. The most common mistake would be setting the wrong preload.

Short answer to your question: I had 2 bearings give me a little trouble, but I just cut them off. No issues after that.
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