I just put all new 4.10s in my 96' XLT this week along with redoing all the bearings in the front and rear axles. Moving onto the next thing on my list which is T-case rebuild. Then hopefully engine overhaul, trans rebuild, and new exhaust system.


Just want to see what you other Bronco drives have been doing to your rigs and any advice or ideas thought would come in handy for me (on a limited budget.)

 

what are you trying to build? Trail rig, Daily Driver, rocks, mud??

 

I'm just messing around with it right now until I can find something serious to do with it. It's my daily driver but I want it to be a trail rig and a mud truck as well but where I live there isn't a lot of areas to do any of that.

 

Well, for an exhaust system, I would recommend long tube headers instead of shorties, as they will give you more low end torque. A 3 inch Y pipe dumping into a single high flow cat, and a muffler of your choice. 4.10's in a daily driver will lower your mpg but I am sure you thought of that before buying/installing them. You didn't mention tire size or which engine you have but I am guessing the tires are taller than stock and that is why you chose the 4.10 gears. You mentioned rebuilding your T-case, engine and trans, are they all worn out, or are you wanting to rebuild them just for the experience? I have no experience rebuilding transmissions, or T cases, but have rebuilt an engine or two. It will not be cheap, but it will be cheaper than buying a crate motor, or remanufactured motor (depending on how many upgrades you buy for it).

Jim

 

Fordman, you work fast, congrats!.

 

I'll break it down so it's a little easier to understand. It's a 96' XLT, 351W, E40D, not sure which T-case it is yet. I have 33x12.5x15 tires. The exhaust right now is Hedman long tube Headers running to true duals exiting out before the rear tires through thrush tubes/mufflers. Engine, trans, and T-case have 294xxx miles on it and it still runs extremely strong.

I wanted to go to shorty headers, 2.5in y pipe to dual high flow cats, and a single in dual out muffler to duals out the back (really like the exit before the tires though).

It took us 2 days to swap the 4.10s in the back but took us 5 days to do the front end.

I can buy a rebuilt 351W off a friend with only 6k miles on it for $700. I could get a trans for easily $500.

 

Sounds like a lot of work, Eventually i want to have my engine and trans overhauled (400m and c-6) But that requires a lot of money which i don't have. I also plan to do long tubes with flowmaster 40s out the back tight now i have stock manifolds into flexpipe then cherry bombs and out behind the doors, and its pretty loud.

 

My thrush mufflers are still breaking in, but I think they are starting to sound alot better then the 2 flowmaster's I had tried before. Plus they are like half the price.

 

any tips on regearing? I'm waiting to come into money (hopefully taxes) so I can regear, but I know I could save a ton just doing it myself. I've had the money half a dozen times to buy the gears, but then it's double to pay someone to fricken put them in and puts it at like 2 grand for front and rear + new carriers. Everyone tells me not to do it myself, but I'm getting pretty good with a wrench.

Why was the front so much harder? everyone acts like the D44 is easier to swap gears into than the rear 8.8

 

ErrorS I'll break it down for you.

Prep work: bought 4.10 gears for front and rear (plus spacers and new front carrier for D44), and bearing kits for front and rear (had all my bearings for the carrier and such). I had a good friend of the family help me as well so it was MUCH easier because he was very experienced in the field.

Rear: We tore that all down and got it on the bench. I had to replace my passenger rear wheel seal and bearing due to some very major issues. (My axle shaft had about a 3/16th wear where the bearing used to be. So i bought a bearing/spacer combo which moves the bearing to a different location on your axle shaft extending the life and saving me $250.) We swapped over the ring gear, torqued it to the specified ft. lbs (65 for mine) and then put the pinion it (slight difficulty but we got it). Put everything back in the axle, tested my backlash was easily within specs. New gasket and filled it up. Total time including running around: a day.

Front: Now this was a different story entirely. A word of advice "BUYING NORMAL 4.10 GEARS FOR THE FRONT WILL MAKE YOU HAVE TO BUY A NEW CARRIER. IF YOU ORDER THICKER GEARS, YOU WILL NOT HAVE TO CHANGE THE FRONT CARRIER AND THAT SAVES YOU A FEW HOURS OF WORK. I WOULD ADVISE DOING THAT." After draining it all we got to work. Removed the tires, calipers, hubs, spindles and axle shafts (broke one of the studs holding the spindle cover on to the axles turning piece so it took me a day to track a replacement down since the dealer does not carry it anymore.)

After unbolting the 10 bolts on the front and the 2 bolts on the back side of the axle we were able to wrestle the pig out. A few grunts and groans later it was sitting on the bench. For mine there was the other half of the passenger axle shaft connected into the pig, so to remove it there is a spring clip. I had to push in the shaft slightly and put 2 flat heads on each end of the spring to tap it out. Axle shaft pulled out with ease. Next I had to remove the caps which was 4 bolts torqued to 110 ft lbs. **IMPORTANT** KEEP TRACK OF WHICH CAP GOES TO WHICH SIDE OF THE PIG AND WHICH END OF THE CAP IS FACING UP. **IMPORTANT**

Now the gear housing itself is wedged in quite tight since there is shims on the back sides of the bearings. IF YOU SWITCH CARRIERS YOU WILL NEED THOSE EXACT SHIMS OR ELSE YOU WILL HAVE LOTS OF ISSUES! Since I bought a new carrier because I didn't order thicker gears I had swap everything to the new carrier. You have to remove the ring gear on the front carrier to get to the central gears. The local Ring & Pinion shop helped me pop out the old roll pin (quite simple but I got stumped.) After a little trickery I had all the old gears from the housing on my new carrier (Be sure to grease them thoroughly and the spider gears have a small washer behind them be sure to move them to the new carrier if you do not get thicker gears.) Happy with how the new gears turned I put on my new ring gear and torqued to specs (again 65 ft lbs for me). Next we removed the old bearings off the old carrier with a sledge and chisel (didn't have a bearing remover) but kept in mind that we had to save the spacers behind them. After acquiring the spacers we placed them in the correct spots and pressed on the new bearings and packed them. Next we removed the old pinion from the pig (be mindful of how everything comes out because you will need to put it back in exactly how it was) Taped out the old races and put the new ones in; Pressed on the needed bearings and put the pinion back in. Satisfied with that we placed the carrier back into the pig (Its a very tight squeeze we had to give it some love taps to seat it in there.) After torquing the caps down (110 ft lbs here) and putting the axle shaft back in, we were ready to put the pig back in. A few grunts and groans; and a hour or so, we had the front back together and topped off with fluid.
Total front time: 5 days (due to work delays and part returns).

Now I'm still in the 500 mile break in process so I haven't had time to really test out the 4.10s...YET

Advice for others: Buy thicker gears to save you some trouble with the carrier, keep track of how everything went together, and don't be afraid to get some help!

 

I like how you named your front axle Pig haha

 

the 4.10's won't hurt your gas mileage...hell my 90 5.0 bronco came with them from the factory....with your bigger 33's it'll probably help your mpg's.....When I bump up to 35's I would like to go 4.56 gears...but not worth the expense imo

 

I don't think it would be worth the expense either if its just your daily driver. The 4.10s and 4.56s aren't that much in difference. It would've been like me switching from 3.55s to 3.73s; not much a difference at all.

 

So I finally got the money to change my exhaust. I'm going to get a custom 3in Y-pipe into a magnaflow hi-flow cat then into a thrush muffler and duals out the back. What I wanna know is: what would be the difference between doing 2 Magnaflow hi-flow cats vs 1 of them?

 

Cost. Unless you are running an x-pipe there's no reason to run 2 cats. I have longtubes a custom Y into a single magnaflow cat and then a super 44. Sounds great and wasn't too expensive.