I am looking at adding 4.56 gears and want to tackle myself (with the help of a few others). I am curious when changing gears how critical is it to buy a whole new gear kit /bearing set rather then just the ring and pinion?

 

It is VERY critical to buy a install kit when installing new gears. They make a basic install kit and major install kit. You should always replace the bearings as it would suck to get the new gears installed and 100 miles down the road a bearing goes bad. Also you have to pull the bearings off your diff to install shims and a lot of times you end up wrecking a bearing.

If you don't know how to setup gears doing it for the first time without help can be dangerous and costly.

 

Well it is obvious that my ram must be completely different than everyone else's on this forum. The stuff I post is from past experience, Yes on my DANA 60'S, I had to grind out the inside of the differential in order to clear the ring gear and the carrier. And on my buddies truck we put in set of 4.88's in his we ended up hogging out the inside to clear ring gear. People I am no stranger to working on cars or trucks been doing this for 35 years.

 

yankee,
If you have been turning wrenches on rigs for 35 years then you SHOULD know that no two rigs are going to be exactly the same. I'm not sure what it is your talking about here. Is there a point to you post other than to tell us your truck is different than others?

I'm not sure I understand where you had to grind and why. Why would you have to grind the inside of the diff to clear the ring gear and carrier? Do you mean you had to grind the housing to allow the ring gear to go into it? Got any pictures? And on your buddies truck you had to hog out what to clear the ring gear? What gears are you using? Thick cut or standard? Are you running lockers or anything? Using the stock carriers? Need pictures to maybe help explain the whys.

 

Ok so I'm going to go with 4.56 in my axels. In the rear I have the Richmond powertrax 1220lr. It's a mechanical locker no clutches. Like a two sided ratchet; love it. I also have 35s, will the 4.56 ring gear fit right in?

 

If you have stock carriers front and rear still, need thick cut for the front, don't think it matters in the rear.

 

I am getting ever so closer to doing the re-gear and am doing some last minute research, I was looking at just buying gears and minor install all from one site but I find it hard to believe that Filthy Motorsports is asking $242 for front and $298 for the rear gears. I don't really see the difference between gear manufactures besides Yukon or G2 boasting that there gears run as quite as factory vs the gears that USA Standard gear offers. Another thing I was curious about, is there any real damage that can occur if you have gears that differentiate by .01 of their ratios. I.E. Rock Auto has 4.56 for rear gears and 4.55 for front. I understand that if the gears are off by more there is some pretty bad damage that can happen by does .01 really affect rations that much?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but from my understanding front and back ratios will be off by that small amount and won't hurt anything. My front and back ratios aren't the same and so far nothing has happened.

 

So long as you don't use 4 wheel drive on high-traction surfaces, the .01 difference isn't going to matter.

 

So doing 60-70 mph down a desolate, icy in 4H would be out of the question?