i have a 92 toyota pickup and it will have 37'' tires soon i was wondering exactly how difficult is it to switch out ring and pinions by yourself? i have everything to install them i have both master install kits for front and rear (went with 5.29's for my R&P) and the reason im switching them out is im sick of trailering it to events i built the truck myself so god dammit i want to drive it there from now on lol and maybe to work a couple times, i have hobby plates for it so why not. anyways my local shops all said it would run me around or close to $1000 to install gears if i can save $1000 by doing it myself i would prefer to go that way.Is this a real pain in the ass job? ive never had to mess with ring and pinions till now

 

I always say "if you have to ask, you shouldn't be doing it yourself." I mean no offense with that, but setting up gears can be considered an art.

One way of saving a good amount of money is to pull the diffs and drop them off at the shop. Labor should drop significantly and should only run around $150-$200 per diff.

Read here: www.gearinstalls.com

Good luck.

 

thanks taking both the diffs out would be better for me the shops around here (i live in WI) seem sketchy when i call they all say ohh yeah we did a ring and pinion swap before or yeah... i think we have a guy here that did a ring and pinion before he might be able to do it. so i might take the diffs to a 4x4 shop probably worth the 2 hour drive than to worry if its being put in right, and no offense taken thanks for the reply and link

 

i believe you can also send them off to ZUK(gearinstalls.com) and have him set them up for you as another option.

 

I just finished my own gear install, with the help of Zuk. I had a mechanic friend do the original setup and found out that he never did one before. The gears lasted a year before the pinion got hammered.

You can do your own, but you will need quite a few special tools to do so.

I have worked on every part of my truck except the transmission. So far, setting up gears has been the most challenging job. I spent several days to understand how it all works.

Or, send them to Zuk. He is very detail oriented, and they will be setup right for sure.

 

so i looked at Zuks website and yes he has tons of threads on different set ups but do i just contact him and send them UPS...? what does this normally run and how fast is turnaround time? anybody ever send there diffs to zuk? I just never heard of anybody sending a set of differentials through the mail

 

Shoot Zuk an e-mail and he'll tell you how to pack them and how much and how fast.


I think he even shows plenty of examples of how they were packed if you just read the builds.


I have seen buckets and Tupper ware used to ship.

 

I just did my first gear setup. Time will tell how good i did. The thought of doing them always scared me. Glad i did it. Its not hard , just takes along time being a first timer. And you need some tools to do it. Press , torque wrench, bearing pullers. Or you could buy the tools with the money you will be saving . Look at lots of pictures of patterns and make big shim movements in the beginning to see whats happening. First try learning on the front. I think the rear needs to be setup the best so learn on the front. If you can't do it or your not sure then take it to someone else after you tried . Get a junk 3rd tear it apart and see if you can put it back together.

While i was at it , i built a centered land cruiser rear axle and a
cut-n-turn , shave fj60 front axle too. Fun Fun Fun.

 

It is one of those things .

You need to know what your doing.

Yes you could muddle through but the cost of another two sets of gears is it worth it??

Now if you see a future where you will be doing 10 or 12 sets of gears a year it might be worthwhile to learn.

This is not something you take to the corner garage.