shawj460

awesome you have been a tremendous help. i really apppreciate your extended help!!!

0hsiks_crewcab

No problem, I apologize on the length but that's factory way of doing it.

imp

Sorry for the delay, shaw; don't know for sure where yer at by now, but anyway: The clutch pack preload? It's accomplished by a big spring, not a real problem (at least on Ford-built). Auburn is good, I've heard, but do not know more.
If ring & pinion tooth surfaces are nice and shiny, no real reason to replace the gears, so long as no evidence of excessive heat is there.
If rebuilding, replacing all the bearings, let's say, tolerances present in bearing mfg. will result in improper gear tooth pattern, likely enough to produce noise, possibly close enough to "luck out", no way of telling in advance. New ring and pinion would be even a bit trickier. These gears are initially set up in their center section by measuring the DEPTH to the pinion face from a reference point in the carrier, after the pinion is located in the pumpkin. Each pinion is factory-marked (sometimes the marks are no longer legible after long use), with an identifying number to tell where the pinion needs to located compared to a "standard depth" which is determined by "line-to-line" bearing dimensions, that is, no tolerance. Thus, a +5 on the pinion would mean 0.005" deviation from the standard shim stack height.
Since shims not only locate the pinion with respect to the ring gear, but ALSO determine pinion bearing preload, which is VERY important, proper pinion set-up is very critical, to get good service life. Pinion bearing preload is measured by rotating the pinion within the housing while measuring turning torque effort, done by hand.
I can't personally recommend to you that you fix this thing yourself, or not, 'cause there is really no way to judge your ability: I'm NOT questioning your smarts, understand, just don't want to encourage you to go ahead, and come out smelling real bad! Take a whack at the job, if you feel so inclined, but best have a Ford Shop Manual to follow, few aftermarket books I have seen are really good enough.
If you go ahead, be ready to experience some frustration; pinion bearings (the rear one especially) press on TIGHT; then ya gotta often get the damn thing back off to change shim thickness, sometimes more than once. Use of a solid spacer (ala racing-car technique) instead of a "crush washer" makes the job even tougher. Good luck! imp

Edit: Price? No idea, but be forewarned, many shops lack the top-level experience needed to acceptably (to my expectations, anyway) set up ring & pinion gearsets. It's slow work, takes patience and careful understanding, thus to make money at it, the charges must be high.