Hi All, especially those KJ folks who have regeared by swapping axles with a 4-******!
My KK is my daily driver, tow rig, and off-road work vehicle. It’s been lifted for more than 110,000 miles, but not regeared, even though it needs 4.10’s. Regearing is expensive out here in the mid-Atlantic-northeastern megalopolis. I’m looking at more than $3000 almost any place I could bring it. I did find a place in NJ that could do both axles and a rear TrueTrac for about $3300. It’s not that I think I’d be getting ripped off or anything. Life is just more expensive and shops and their workers need to live too. It’s just that anytime I start saving for this job, something always comes up that needs the money first.
So, I am trying to scheme alternatives. I’ve been reading a lot about the regearing process and watching lots of YouTube. I understand about shims and preload and pinion depth and backlash and the fact that if the gears aren’t dialed in right, they will get trashed and I’d have to start over. I don’t have any of the specialized tools, but hope that I could rent them. But neither do I have a garage to work in. Setting up gears while parked on the street is probably not a good idea. And of course the front needs to be dropped to access it.
I got to thinking about how nice it would be if other KK’s had 4.10 gears, but none were ever made that way. (You all who found 4.10 axles from 4-cylinder KJ’s are lucky!). However, if I could get my hands on some donor diffs, I could maybe set the gears up in my basement on my workbench, then later swap the axles...
I did some poking around on car-part.com. There are a couple of junkyards in NJ that have a front carrier and a rear axle housing. It would be about a 200 mile round trip from Philly but the parts could be had for about $50 and $150 respectively. Well that plus core charges, whatever that would be.
4.10 ring & pinion sets on EBay cost about $200 per axle for the decent brands, and add in $100 each for shim & bearing kits. That gets me up to $800 for the job. If I wanted a TrueTrac for the rear, that’s $700 more. So $1500 for the regear if I am the labor.
Advantages to my scheme as I see it are:
- I don’t have to buy everything at once- acquire as I can afford them.
- 1/2 the total cost of a shop or less
- No down time on the daily driver while I figure things out, just the day I swap the axles
- If I screw it up I still have my stock axles that will work fine
- It would be technically challenging and could be fun
Disadvantages are:
- Expensive to screw up, and I have no experience with gears
- Lots more time commitment in fetching the donor axles & doing the gears myself
- I don’t own a bearing puller or a press, or any of the calipers and sensitive measuring devices I need to set up the gears
- Swapping axles while parked on the street could still be dicey. (I suppose I don’t have to do both ends in the same day if I just unplug the 4x4 switch.)
Ok, now that I’ve laid out this scheme (not calling it a plan at this point), I’d love to get some feedback. Have at it! Especially I’d like to hear from folks who have regeared their own axles or swapped in axles from a 4-******. Good idea? Bad idea? What haven’t I thought of? Is this a crazy idea? Does anyone live reasonably close to southeastern PA who could help (once this pandemic is over)?
Many thanks if you read this far!
—Lauren
My KK is my daily driver, tow rig, and off-road work vehicle. It’s been lifted for more than 110,000 miles, but not regeared, even though it needs 4.10’s. Regearing is expensive out here in the mid-Atlantic-northeastern megalopolis. I’m looking at more than $3000 almost any place I could bring it. I did find a place in NJ that could do both axles and a rear TrueTrac for about $3300. It’s not that I think I’d be getting ripped off or anything. Life is just more expensive and shops and their workers need to live too. It’s just that anytime I start saving for this job, something always comes up that needs the money first.
So, I am trying to scheme alternatives. I’ve been reading a lot about the regearing process and watching lots of YouTube. I understand about shims and preload and pinion depth and backlash and the fact that if the gears aren’t dialed in right, they will get trashed and I’d have to start over. I don’t have any of the specialized tools, but hope that I could rent them. But neither do I have a garage to work in. Setting up gears while parked on the street is probably not a good idea. And of course the front needs to be dropped to access it.
I got to thinking about how nice it would be if other KK’s had 4.10 gears, but none were ever made that way. (You all who found 4.10 axles from 4-cylinder KJ’s are lucky!). However, if I could get my hands on some donor diffs, I could maybe set the gears up in my basement on my workbench, then later swap the axles...
I did some poking around on car-part.com. There are a couple of junkyards in NJ that have a front carrier and a rear axle housing. It would be about a 200 mile round trip from Philly but the parts could be had for about $50 and $150 respectively. Well that plus core charges, whatever that would be.
4.10 ring & pinion sets on EBay cost about $200 per axle for the decent brands, and add in $100 each for shim & bearing kits. That gets me up to $800 for the job. If I wanted a TrueTrac for the rear, that’s $700 more. So $1500 for the regear if I am the labor.
Advantages to my scheme as I see it are:
- I don’t have to buy everything at once- acquire as I can afford them.
- 1/2 the total cost of a shop or less
- No down time on the daily driver while I figure things out, just the day I swap the axles
- If I screw it up I still have my stock axles that will work fine
- It would be technically challenging and could be fun
Disadvantages are:
- Expensive to screw up, and I have no experience with gears
- Lots more time commitment in fetching the donor axles & doing the gears myself
- I don’t own a bearing puller or a press, or any of the calipers and sensitive measuring devices I need to set up the gears
- Swapping axles while parked on the street could still be dicey. (I suppose I don’t have to do both ends in the same day if I just unplug the 4x4 switch.)
Ok, now that I’ve laid out this scheme (not calling it a plan at this point), I’d love to get some feedback. Have at it! Especially I’d like to hear from folks who have regeared their own axles or swapped in axles from a 4-******. Good idea? Bad idea? What haven’t I thought of? Is this a crazy idea? Does anyone live reasonably close to southeastern PA who could help (once this pandemic is over)?
Many thanks if you read this far!
—Lauren
