Rear axle swap, good deal or not? | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Rear axle swap, good deal or not?

Darrman

Well-Known Member
Joined
October 8, 2005
Messages
755
Reaction score
6
City, State
Waxahachie, TX
Year, Model & Trim Level
'92 Sport 4x4/2001 Sport
I have been debating swapping my rear axle for some time now, and have recently found a possible local donor.
It a Explorer axle, from a '01 Sport, wrecked in the front, no rear damage, engine was not pushed back. Axle code is D4, which is supposed to be a 3:73 Limited slip. There is only 75k miles on the truck, and it was pristine, I mean this thing was in great shape before the wreck!
Talked to the owner and $150 plus I take it off, will buy it.
My truck right now is 3:55 open diff, front and rear, I would have to swap out the front to 3:73 later to use the 4x4. I have 31's and several of the usual bolt on performance stuff, lots of power but mileage sucks ass.
So my question is, should I get the axle and stick with 3:73's, or swap to 4:10's later, or keep looking for a factory 4:10 axle?
 



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If it were me, the disc brakes that should be in the rear of an 01 would have me buying that axle, even knowing that in the future I would have to change gears in the front pumpkin. I think that 31's and 3:73 gears work out pretty good.
 






I would take it around me the best price i have found is 500 plus 200 for the front.
 






I might just have to drive to texas. Kidding but that is a pretty good deal. You can swap to 4.10 or even 4.56s ;) later. Rebuild the LS and you have yourself a pretty good axle for not a lot of cash.
 






Thanks for the input guys, I went and picked up the axle yesterday. What a day, the truck did not want to give it up, lol.
Axle looks pretty good, other than a pinion seal leak. Gonna start pulling it apart tomorrow, see what I have to work with.
 






Not sure if this would work, but could you just remove the disc brakes from that new axle and bolt them on in place of the drums??? Then you could regear to 4.10 or whatever when you get the time. 3.55 to 3.73 won't be much of a noticable difference in my opinion.
 






Not sure if this would work, but could you just remove the disc brakes from that new axle and bolt them on in place of the drums??? Then you could regear to 4.10 or whatever when you get the time. 3.55 to 3.73 won't be much of a noticable difference in my opinion.

I hear you, I will look into the brake thing. Not sure tho, the flanges are probably different. I am going to regear it, 3:73's are not my choice, just what it had.
I am going to totally overhual this axle, strip and paint, rebuild brakes, regear, and maybe rebuild the LS. I rebuilt my "9 rear end from my F100 not too long ago, so I want to learn about this 8.8 now.
 












That swap is exactly what I did. My axle came out of an '01 sport 2wd. 3.73 open gear. Everything bolted up just fine. I didn't even have to do anything special with the brake lines.
 






Dude that's a good deal if it's all in tact. Buy it, re gear it and then install it.
 






Well I looked over the axle, took the brakes off, stripped all the extra stuff like the sway bar off.
Brakes are completly shot, only thing salvagable is the lines and calipers. I dont know how the PO managed to grind it all the way down to the backing plates on the pads, in 75k miles, but they did. Passenger rotor was neatly ground down to about 1/4 inch thick. So I will need new pads, rotors and ebrake shoes.
However that aside the axle is in great shape, tight as a drum, popped the rear cover off, fluid looked brand new still, no metal shavings, and the gears looked like they were cut yesterday!
Now I will start shopping around for a set of 4:10's for the front and back.
By the way, are the sway bars interchangable? I only kept the bar itself, I left the droplinks
Also how did you hook up the ebrake cables?
 






If you were only planning on going to 4.10 gears, you should have gotten a 4.10 rear to save money of regearing this one. I got the 3.73 because I was planning on running it for a while matching the front, but then I regeared both.

I got the ebrake cables with the disk axle. I have a 4 door, so I then found a 2nd gen 4 door and took everything from where the cable attaches to the cable off of the pedal (right were it comes through the floor). You should be able to get everything off of the sport and use that. Don't know about swaybars. Mine are gone.
 






Damn, I cut the parking cable, I left the little ball part that you join the sections together with on my end of the parking cables. I thought I would be able to join them to mine. I tried to get the whole thing but the drivers door was jammed shut, and I was tired of jacking with it.
I couldnt find a 4:10 axle around here, everything I saw was 3:73 or higher. I got this one because of the LS and the disc brakes for a good price. Either way I will have to regear the front. I am going to do all of the work myself, and I have some of the special tools required already, so I am going to give it a try.
 






If I was going to use it as a wheeling rig I'd rather have just got the 3:73 and re geared to 4:10 this way I know what's in there already and if anything is bad. If you are looking for new gears let me know I"ll work somthing out for you. I've done a bunch of the guys gears on here already..
 






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