On a 2wd go with 3.55 or 3.73. On a 4x4 definitely 3.73, 4.10 only if you are planning on towing constantly or very heavy loads, or are going to throw some 33's or 35's on it and don't really care about mpg's. The taller the gear the better the mpg, the shorter the gear the greater the torque.

 

id stick with 3.55s like fit said. your truck will do fine towing your wife's car 1 time, yea it may have issues on hills but its only 1 trip. i only swapped gears in my 250 because im towing more and more and going to be getting a car trailer here soon to haul trucks. otherwise 3.55s were fine as a daily.

 

It really depends on the motor, as well as the tire size, an i6 will get away with 3.08's and a slightly bigger tire, but a 302 would benefit from a shorter ratio, if you plan on getting new tires take the diameter of the new tire, divide it buy the original diameter of the tire and multiply it by your original gear ratio, the results will not be exact but its pretty obvious like if you were to get 3.45, 3.55 ratio is what you would need too maintain stock powerband

 

Okay so I'm looking at getting this and rebuilding the rear end I have... is this the best option or how would you guys do it because I absolutely do not want this thing breaking down on the way to Texas... I will take it and get the backlash and all that done by a professional but I'm going to press the bearings in and all that but I'm trying to gauge what the be at thing to do is....
http://m.summitracing.com/parts/cmb-14-0064

 

shops around here charge $600 to do gears per axle, they usually buy the gears. just to give you a ball park idea.

 

Around her you can get the whole rear axle off a truck for ~ $200 from a pull-a-part place or less from a junk yard. Might consider just swapping it out for that big of a price difference.

 

exactly, i had my axle swapped in 2h and im only out the price of paint and $120 for gear oil.

 

So I want to thank you all for the suggestions and help... I bought a rearend 8.8 obviously with locking 3:55 ratio and cleaned the inside and all, painted it, so now it's all clean and looks good in my truck. It's running good so far so we shall see how it works out.. Thank you again.

 

Glad to hear that.

If you don't mind, what did it cost for the new used rear end?

 

Much better