I have been talking to the garage about my 1988 1/2 ton 4x4 and it sounds bad. They tell me that some kind of a bolt that holds the gears in place and prevents all the guts from falling in on each other has broken, leading to debris gouging the inside of the case and scouring up the gears. It is a 4:10 , 8.8, posi-trac rear end which is almost impossible to find up here and if I did find one I will have to pay between $850-1000 for it. I am looking for a picture/diagram of the internals on this rear end so I can understand a little better what the machanic is talking about. Any chance some one has a schematic on line some where? Does anyone have a link I could try?

 

dave,

I don't have a schematic but if it's an 8.8 rear end it can be rebuilt for less than that. I have the same problem, except my pin isn't broken yet. There is a pin that goes through the carrier and that's what is broken. So yeah I might be rebuilding mine soon and I might go with 3.73 gears. Hope everything works out for you.

 

You can buy a limited slip off ebay for $50...but I have some parts available, e-mail me.

 

You never really said why you had your truck at the garage anyways? Are you having a specific problem with the rear axle or did you just have a lot of noise and vibration. If so, have you seen all of these broken or damaged parts which the shop has been telling you about? I just bring these questions to attention because my dad had any experience like this where the shop told him his rear axle needed to be fixed. They said it would cost $650 to fix. I told him that was rediculous and looked at his van and saw that all it needed was U-joints. Just had to share this