Mike

Hey I was wondering if it was a good idea to regear my truck myself. My friend did it on his jeep Cherokee amd it seems to work fine but I have heard that if u don't do it right I could totally eff the rear end up and I really dont wanna do that. Does any1 know how big of a chance there is of screwing up my rear by doing it on my own?

wxmcpo

Only you can gauge whether you really have the mechanical know-how to do it yourself or not. My recommendation though is if you don't have the money to get it done right IF you do eff it up, then I would take it to a shop and have it done.

Mike

So u think I shud try it and hope for the best?

Kattumaram

When you say "re-gear" I presume you mean to change the gear ratio in the differential...and I further presume your truck is two-wheel drive.

If you intend to change the gear set (ring and pinion) in the differential, I strongly suggest you have a pro do the work. There is a lot more to the job than meets the eye.

If you want to do the work yourself, then I equally as strongly suggest you get a whole rear axle assembly with the desired gear ratio, drop the drive shaft, disconnect the ABS, pull the brakes and replace the whole axle. That way you don't run the risk of screwing up the settings in the gear set which are very critical.

driver444

I would also recommend not doing this yourself. Changing a differential is one thing, but gear changes are pretty involved. Although the axles Ford uses are pretty straight forward, everything has to be dead-on perfect to not have problems down the road. You're dealing with tolerances in the thousanths-of-an-inch, and preload specs that have to be right on. Also, there are some special tools required, some of which you may be able to do without, but would save a ton of time if you had them.

Things that can happen if you do screw it up...
1. whining noise
2. premature gear wear
3. excessive heat
4. excess slop in drivetrain
5. a total catastrophic failure that will insure that you need an entire axle assembly.

Keep in mind that if #5 happens, it usually doesn't happen in the driveway at 5MPH. It happens on the road at highway speed! I saw it happen to a friend of mine's truck, while I was sitting in mine, and I was scared!

driver444

I reread your post. It seems you have a 4wd, (you mentioned torsion bars).

The front end has to be regeared with the rear. That is a serious P.I.T.A. That involves all of the stuff mentioned for the rear axle, along with dismantling the whole front end of the truck. Not fun. So, not only would I save this job for a pro, but I'd seriously consider whether it's that important to you to do it in the first place. You'll have a couple grand in this before you're done, most of which will be labor.

wxmcpo

Only IF you have the money to pay someone to fix your mistakes IF you do eff it up. Then again if you have the money to do that then you should pay ME to come do it for you and when I do eff it up you can take it to the shop.

Mike

Ha na I'm super poor lol. The reason I wanna Regear is cuz I'm runnin 35s on stock 3.55s and I don't want to strain it too much since it's got 153k miles on it and I can get both front and rear gears for 300 bucks! Do u think it will poop out sooner than average cuz of the 35's?