Front Diff Identification?

[Turdle]

Ok, pretend you are at a Junkyard, and someone has already snagged the doors and rear diff.

How can I verify the proper gear ratio in the front differential? Is there a tag on it?

I did look on mine, but it appears to have been cracked open for fluid change and someone must have thrown away the tag--

Now who would have done that?


I searched for "front differential identification" with no luck.

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[IZwack]

You can find out how many turns of the yoke it takes to rotate the axle shaft (or tire / wheel) once - just dont forget to prevent the other side from rotating (or just keep one tire on the ground and jack up the other). The main issue with this method is backlash - so you'll have to make sure you start and end on the same "side" of the backlash. Most ratios are about a quarter of a turn from each other - 3.27, 3.55, 4.10 (all about .25 away) - so it shouldn't be too difficult to judge which ratio it has.

 

[IZwack]

Actually I'm wrong, you might have to rotate the yoke until the wheel/tire/shaft rotates twice because of the spiders walking over the frozen one.

 

[Turdle]

You can find out how many turns of the yoke it takes to rotate the axle shaft (or tire / wheel) once - just dont forget to prevent the other side from rotating (or just keep the tire on that side on the ground and jack up only one side). The only issue with this method is backlash - so you'll have to make sure you start and end on the same "side" of the backlash. Most ratios are about a quarter of a turn from each other - 3.27, 3.55, 4.10 (all about .25 away) so it shouldn't be too difficult to judge which ratio it has.

Thanks for chiming in

So there is no "tag" identifier? This place will lift trucks up with a forkilift to help the dis assembly, however, most are sitting on the frame with drive shafts intact. This would make it very difficult to read a tag, let alone remove the drive shaft etc to spin the yoke.

 

[IZwack]

Ah ok - I see. The door tag is really the only way of identifying w/o physical access to the axle.

 

[Turdle]

Well, ok then, so, I drove up to Ped5stang's shop and scored a front 3.73 front diff
Stamped on the cover is 47446

The last 2 digits make sense, that is the code for 3.73 std

 

[RomeovilleIL]

Well, ok then, so, I drove up to Ped5stang's shop and scored a front 3.73 front diff
Stamped on the cover is 47446

The last 2 digits make sense, that is the code for 3.73 std

Umm... If the front end was already down for the count, why another IFS? SAS with lots of pics would be way cooler forum posting.

 

[IZwack]

SAS with lots of pics would be way cooler forum posting.

Maybe cauz this is the "Stock 1995 - 2001 Explorers" section and a solid axle swap isn't "stock"

 

[Dan Whitaker]

Wish I'd seen this sooner. I threw in a spare 3.73 front diff with my old Mounty when I sold it to the former member.

 

[Turdle]

Umm... If the front end was already down for the count, why another IFS? SAS with lots of pics would be way cooler forum posting.

I've been all around the explorer world.

For me, and my wife, 31's and IFS just work best.