changing a rear end

[ragtop5point0]

i am planning on changing the rear end in my stang, and was wondering if anyone knew, considering everything goes alright about how long i am looking at..my other question is the gears...how involved is changing the gears and would i be able to do it myself..thanks for the input

[GodStang]

Not sure how long, but gears are a pain. Most say that it is one of the hardest things to do on a car.

[cyberstang5.0]

I would recomend taking it to a speed shop and having it done. If you don't get the teeth pattern set just right, your rear end will whine and possiably brake off a few teeth.

[Dark_5.0]

I did my own gears and they turned out great. Since I have installed 2 more sets of gears in friends cars.

It takes patience thats all. Heres a tip use FMS gears and the install will go much smoother.

Another tip- When you are installing the bearing on the pinion gear. Just take a little hand held torch and heat up the bearing, then it drops right on the shaft then when it cools its on there tight as hell. If you are gonna re-use the bearing from your old pinion gear just heat the bearing up and it will slide right off the old pinion gear. This is much easier than pressing them on and off.

As far as swaping the entire rear end. It took me 2 hours and I wasnt in a hurry.

Later

Yeah...I'd say swapping rearends will take you 2-3 hours. Fairly simple. Just don't forget to disconnect that soft (rubber hose) brake line that goes to the hard lines on the rearend. wouldn't want to drop the rear thinking it's ready to fall out...& have that line hold you up...or worse...brake or kink the line or fittings. as for the gears...I had mine done by a speed shop. That's about the only thing I've paid to have done.

[stock89]

Did the gears with the aide of a "buddy". Saved money, but they whine so bad I get hostile. Now I'm taking it overseas and am going to gear back up, 3:08's would be great. I have the stock 2.73's but..... Anybody got a set that DO NOT whine? Also, any recommendations for the Mid missouri area for install? How much did it run you??

Rob

[MEDIK418]

Swapping out the rear end is an easy one. THe biggest pain is the brake line connection to the car. One person can do it in about 2 hours. Two can do it in an hour. Before you do anything, spray all of the nuts with aerokroil or WD-40 about a week in advance. Spray them every day and by the time you're ready to do the swap, they'll be ready to go.

[Harry]

My '85 GT came with a 7.5 inch rear, so I went thru both a rear end swap and gear swap. If you think you might want to change rear control arms, I would suggest doing them when you do the rear end. It's much easier to do them all at once. I say it took me about 4 hours to get the rear and the control arms swapped. the hardest part was getting the driveshaft disconnected. Those bolts were on tight! I had to use a long 12cm wrench, then use my floor jack to push the wrench in order to crack them loose. After that, it was a snap.

I paid a local shop to install the 3.55s into my new 8.8 inch rear. He charged me $150 to do it, and I already had the gears. And he said it was easier to do with the rear in the car first, so I did the rear swap then the gears, just FYI.

Hope this helped.

Harry