nope, the budge on the front of a 4x4 is the opposite of a 2x4. that takes care of the tooth angles.

 

Ok, this is what I'm talking about... On the right is my dana 44 front axle and on the left I'm holding up my old 9.25" 3.90 ring gear. As you can see the teeth are reverse cut.

DSCN0564.jpg?t=1260051369

When you take an axle and spin it around 180* so the pinion is facing the opposite direction, you have to either reverse cut the gears to get the carriers spinning in the same direction as the rear axle, or put the gears on opposite sides of the pumpkin.

 

Alright, the ring gear on the 7.25" IFS axle is on the same side as on my dana 44. Also, if you face the 7.25" IFS axle in the same direction as the rear axle is facing, the ring gears are on the same side. And to make it even more confusing, both the dana 44 and 7.25" pinion gears spin counter-clockwise (while facing them) to turn the axle shafts in a forward moving direction. So does anyone know if the 7.25" IFS has reverse cut gears? Cause it would seem to me like they would have to!

 

dodge in the the late 80's was dying, so they come up with the dakota. from what i read they did it as cheap as possible. they borrowed a lot of stuff from the ram and the early 80's cars to build it. the rear of a cars was put in the front of the of a dak 4x4. do you think they would pay the extra money to make opposite ring gears when they had something that worked.
thanks slt i was kinda confused on that one too

 

I don't think you get it dude. First of all, dodge was dying in the 80s so they built the k car... the dakota is not what saved them, the k car was. But who cares, thats way off topic.

If you are standing, facing the pinion yoke of a rear axle with the axle as it would be situated in the truck, and you turn that pinion yoke clockwise, the axle shafts will spin in the direction needed to propel the truck forward. Now if you take that exact same setup and spin it around 180* to make a front axle, and you spin that axle clock-wise... again facing the pinion, the axle shafts will spin in the direction needed to propel the truck backward. SOMETHING has to be different about them, cause the transfer case front and rear output shafts sure don't spin in opposite directions!! On the dana 44, the gears are reverse cut. I don't know what is different about the chrysler axle, cause I've never opened it up, but something is different about the gears than its rear axle counterpart.

 

Here is a pic from my 7.25 gears when I broke it. To me first look it looks like it is the same as a rear end gear. But I do know exactly what you are talking about Brian. Also the randys ring and pinion site doesn't list a separate ring and pinion for just the front. I'm on my media player so I can't see the pic real good. So if it looks different to others let me know.

 

Felipe, thats cut the same direction as my rear axle ring gear. Something's gotta give though! When I yank out the 7.25" during the SAS, I'll try to find out for sure what's different. But something must cause them to spin in opposite directions.

BTW, WTF did you do to cause that?!?!?!

 

yes you would have to change the ring gear, but at least everyone knows its possible. and up here parts are getting hard to come by.

 

Lol, I'm way past the parts being interchangable. I need to understand the differences in rotation... its just the engineer in me coming out.

I now understand why my dana 44 is reverse cut. It's reverse cut because it's a high pinion. Think about it like this... if the ring and pinion were centerlined with each other, they'd be straight cut gears. When you take the pinion and move it down, the gears need to be cut accordingly, but when you take the gears and move them up, they have to be cut opposite. But that still doesn't explain how the front and rear axles spin opposite directions. I just went out in the garage and studied my 8.25" thats bolted to the 2wd frame, and my dana 44, which is sitting on my 2wd frame, and the ring gears would be on the same side of the carrier if they were oriented the same direction. So theres still something I'm missing here... and it's gonna bug me 'til I figure it out.

**EDIT** Ok, nevermind... I understand now. The pinions may be spinning opposite directions since they are turned around, but you want the axles to spin opposite as well so it all evens out in the end. On the rear axle, the top of the tire turns in toward the top of the pinion to go forward, and on the front axle the top of the tire turn away from the top of the pinion to go forward. It helps having a transfer case and several different axles in the garage to help me figure it out. I was just overthinking it. So yes, the gears are the same front to back, but you still can't mix pairs of gears. The carriers would be interchangable too. But the interchange is only applicable between the same differentials, and I don't think dodge made any front axles out of anything but the 7.25", so this would only apply to the 7.25" rear.

Sorry Mazda7475, you were right and I was confused. Now I get to feel stupid!

 

When I did my 4wd. I changed the front gear to match my rear. That was my first time setting it up. I'm guessing I didn't tighten up the bearing pre-load adjuster correctly. I didn't have the correct tool.

So once when I was offroading I was trying to pull around an abandoned car, we were going to push it off a cliff. I guess I tugged to hard and heard a snap. Tons of play when I opened it all up.

I bought the correct tool after that, and I didn't know about your torsion bar trick.