hey everyone im helpin out a buddy with his newly aquired 83 f150. its a 6 cylinder so i would think it would ahve the 8.8 correct it doesnt ahve a 3rd member so its not the 9. anyways the ring gear in the rear is missing about 10 teeth and needs to be repalced. is there any special tools for doing a ring gear swap. or does it just unbolt and the new one bolt on?
thnx for any imput

 

Ive never personally changed out a rear end ring gear so im not an expert at it! I know you do need a dial inidicator to check the back lash so your in the good zone other wise that rear end will wear out quick! Do not just simply change the gears out without doing a backlash check.

 

You need a new ring and pinion set. You can't replace just one and expect it to last. And honestly, if you don't already know how to do it and aren't prepared to spend quite a bit of money in the special tools, your buddy is much better off taking it to a professional.

Ring & pinion setup is not something the average backyard mechanic should attempt.

 

I don't want to be disagreeable but you can just change the ring gear. The problem will be it could make noise but it will wear in. Use a used ring gear. I would bolt it in and check your pinion to ring gear clearance, by putting bluing on the gears and rotating them by hand. If the mate fairly well and aren't too tight I have had them run for years. I just changed gears in the wife's Dodge D250 Dana 60. I bought a used ring & pinion gear pulled the 4:10s, installed the 3:54 ring & pinion on the carrier put a new inner Pinion bearing on set the pre-load, installed the carrier, checked run-out and put gear oil in and 7,000 miles it is quite and smooth. Sometime I think we can get too carried away with this old stuff. My friend & I were talking the other day about how we fixed stuff back in the day the 50s & 60s. I remember changing out a head on a 312 Ford Y Block. I didn't have money for a head gasket but I had a date that night and needed my car. I took a spray can of copper paint the old man had in the shed and sprayed the heck out of the old gasket and stuck it on wet sprayed some more on then set the new head on and tightened it up. My old 55 Mercury took me out on that date that night and many more dates. I blew the engine about a year later and that head was still going strong. I could tell you story after story of crap we did that worked.

 

You might check the local junkyards, it could be cheaper, and definitely would be easier to get a complete axle and swap in place of the broken one. A good used 8.8 shouldn't be that hard to find. I replaced the gears in my Bronco myself because I couldn't find a local mechanic who would do it, and I don't think I would do it again. It isn't that hard, but it is time consuming, and if you don't have someone experienced to tell you what to look for it is easy to get screwed up.

 

The problem with just going in and doing selective surgery, is all the chunks of metal have been rolling around in there possibly causing more damage than you think. If the pinion was what took the teeth out of the ring gear, I am guessing it doesn't look too good either. Then you have all that metal floating around in the oil(if it had any oil) and that can get into the spider gears and the bearings.

I am not against re-using what's good, but I think you need to tear it down and check everything. Pull the axles out completely and run rags through the tubes to get all the debris out.

Get a manual of some kind that tells you what's going on, and you can probably get through it, though it may howl going down the road like the other poster said, if you don't get it set up correctly.