I have the 4.7L engine and 3.55's. It's okay driving around western OH that is mostly flat, but once I head east past Zanesville into the foothills of the Appalachians, I have to go to Tow/Haul mode because 5th gear is about useless!

Nice to find another Watchmen fan!

 

Yeah, the 4.7 was the direct replacement for the 5.2 with the same hp but a little less torque. Then in 08, it got the dual spark plug treatment like the hemi and power jumped to 305hp! The 3rd gen holy grail is the 08 with 6psd! (Last year for manuals)

Love Watchmen! Such a great movie. Way better than marvel crap the last ten years. Only a few comic book movies hold up to me: Batman 1989, Punisher (Thomas Jane) and Watchmen. You can have the rest.

 

While I do think his price was a little high, and I don't understand why he couldn't give you a written quote, he wasn't lying to you about the factory limited slips in these trucks. They absolutely suck. Almost every one that I've seen with the cover off with more than about 90k miles has broken clips laying in the bottom of the axle housing. That said, on mine I never knew there was a problem until I pulled the cover to look at it. It drove fine. I cleaned it up and took the broken pieces out and drove it another 10k miles like that before finally upgrading to an aftermarket unit. If those pieces brake and get jammed in the gears, it can end up causing a complete failure and or damage to the other components.

 

Yeah, but, even if he replaced EVERYTHING in there, including the brakes, and hardware, I don't think it would be 3000 bucks...... That seems a lot like gouging to me.

 

That I kind of agree with. Although depending on what kind of brake swap they provide, I could see it getting close to that. I've been out of the game for a while, but back several years ago it wasn't uncommon to see people spend 2k on a gear swap. I could easily see 1k tied up into a disk brake conversion if you were paying a shop to do it.

That said, I think you could get someone to do the gear swap significantly cheaper if you look around.

 

not sure if it helps, but i came up with about $2700 to diy regear my d44+9.25 including around $400 in tools i didn't have and giving myself about $100 in wiggle room for bits and pieces. but that includes front and rear truetracs, gears, overhaul kits, crush sleeve eliminator, bearings and seals.

then theres scope creep... get front/rear shafts balanced and new ujoints all around... ball joints? are the C's bent? time for shocks? etc... how important is a warantee? can you physically do the job or have time and equipment?

shops that can/will do the job "RIGHT" for $150-300 are unicorns. i wouldn't do it that cheap... couldn't do it that cheap and plan to be in business for very long. most shops i know that are successful and cheap, price jobs at 300% of parts. with a few exceptions... no one's going to pay $15000 to replace a $5000 engine... but paying $90 to replace a $30 engine mount sounds reasonable to the average person... of course thats the retail price not the price the shop actually pays...

 

When I was writing estimates, I went by the labor time guide..... and added a bit, depending on how old the vehicle was. (for dealing with rusty/broken bolts, and such) 99% of the time, I made money on the jobs. There is ALWAYS that one job, that seems relatively straightforward, that turns out to be anything but.

 

There was no mention of disc brake conversion. All we talked about was Yukon 4.10s, their posi, and a bearing kit. They had a coupon on their site for a free bearing kit but he never mentioned it. They also had a free spin hub kit on display on the counter and it said it was for "2nd gen Dodge half-ton trucks Dana 44" and I said, hey cool! Never seen that before. He said it they don't sell those. Only for the 2500 trucks.

I'm tired of being discriminated against for "only" having a 1500. These are twice as much truck as anything built in the last ten to fifteen years in the half-ton category. But if you don't have a huge lifted diesel, you must be a eunuch.

 

i just spent 5 days on one of those jobs. '96 buick 3.1 intake gasket

 

Ramman18,
Go to a few different gear web sites and add up the cost of new gears, master install kits and stuff. You can bring your truck over to me and camp out in my yard. Plan on spending 3-4 days here to be on the safe side. I'll show you how to do gears on your truck. But I would go with 4.56 gears instead of 4.10 gears.
If your truck is a daily driver I would look at installing Tru Trac lockers front and rear.
The other option is to find a D60 front & D70 rear which would be a big improvement for you.

I'm a diesel truck owner so you might not want to accept my offer of help.
I just want you to find out what it is going to REALLY cost for all the parts. You must use lube locker gaskets for the diff covers. No used parts and since you are in there just replace stuff with new parts.