Beware your installer

[Bnine]

Just because you pay money at a big name shop, doesnt always mean you will get someone on your gears that is competent doing installs.

My suggestion is if you are paying a shop to do gear installs, you speak directly to the person that will installing your gears. Ask them a few questions about their back ground and experience. How many sets have they done. What is their experience with the setup you are running. Are you installing an ARB? How many ARB's has that person done. Etc etc.

Here is a gear set that was done at a big name shop. There are 4 broken teeth on the ring gear. This differential has less then a 1000 miles on it. The cause of the failure is lack of loctite on the ring gear bolts. The bolts back off and causing serious gear deflection under load and ultimately leading to a failed ring and pinion.

Luckily this jeep is a trailer queen. Another 100k on the road and some of the bolts would have likely backed all the way out and made their way into the rest of the differential.






I always see people here giving advice about gears. "Make sure you take your jeep to a reputable shop for your gear work". You have to be careful with that. Even "Reputable shops" have new guys that need to learn. You just dont want them learning how to gears and lockers on your jeep.

What people dont realize is that most professional techs do not do gears on a regular basis. In todays world of RnR, gear setups are almost as outdated for dealer techs as carburator adjustments.

So be carefull. Know whos working on your diffs. Because in our application, its very seldom we can go back and cry foul on shops and get them to honor warrenty work on diffs. It has to be stupidly obvious that they are at fault. Otherwise they just cop out with the hard use and risk you take 4 wheeling excuses.

[BrokenAxle]

I completely agree.  I have seen some lousy stuff from other shops.  BUT, people need to learn.  If everyone only wants seasoned tech with lots of experience doing gears doing it on theirs, what happens when they retire?  No one will have learned the art of the gear set up and then it's the blind leading the blind.

Apprentices and licensed guys still should be able to learn, but the guys that know what they are doing need to stand over their shoulder and double check their work.  I am very particular about how I do things and pass that on to who ever I teach.  You don't do it my way and you don't do it here.

[Dingleberry]

I have new gears and Detroit locker being shipped from Iowa for my Ford 9".... so where do you suggest I get the gears done?

[Nootch]

I agree with OP.  I have had several issues with TGC here in Red Deer after getting gear sets installed,  forcing me into buying parts to receive warranty, then when those parts broke in town (literally a parking lot) not giving warranty.  Paying again to get my jeep out of hock, they install seals backwards and spoil my breaks, not offering to fix that claiming the seals are fine.

[AstraX]

I have new gears and Detroit locker being shipped from Iowa for my Ford 9".... so where do you suggest I get the gears done?

There are a number of guys on here that have had them done by bnine, though I have heard there is a bit of a wait time for him. Dave @ Broken Axle and Jay @ Chanda also work on gears. I haven't personally had any work done on my gears but based on the feedback you get on here I think any of them are trustworthy.  Others can chime in with personal experiences.

[Bnine]

I completely agree.  I have seen some lousy stuff from other shops.  BUT, people need to learn.  If everyone only wants seasoned tech with lots of experience doing gears doing it on theirs, what happens when they retire?  No one will have learned the art of the gear set up and then it's the blind leading the blind.

Apprentices and licensed guys still should be able to learn, but the guys that know what they are doing need to stand over their shoulder and double check their work.  I am very particular about how I do things and pass that on to who ever I teach.  You don't do it my way and you don't do it here.

Yeah, they have to learn somewhere. Just better to let them learn on regular joe and rig rockets then on our stuff. Really, we are such a small fraction of the community anyways. Those apprentices will still have lots of oppourtunity to learn.

i agree whole heartedly that their work should be looked over closely when first learning.

[Bnine]

There are a number of guys on here that have had them done by bnine, though I have heard there is a bit of a wait time for him. Dave @ Broken Axle and Jay @ Chanda also work on gears. I haven't personally had any work done on my gears but based on the feedback you get on here I think any of them are trustworthy.  Others can chime in with personal experiences.

Yeah, this wasnt a plug for myself. Im not really taking on any new people for the time being.

Jay and Dave would be my recommendations as well. The only big shop I trust is the gear center but their prices for gears and installs are very very high.

[Dingleberry]

Yes I noticed the gear centre labour rates are quite high.

[IgniteTJ]

I had the gear center do a quote to regear my front and rear axles in my dodge with me supplying the parts for $3000.

[BUKI]

Dave just did mine a few months ago, they are awesome.  If I can give you some advice, over gear a little bit.  I have 4.88s and 33s, and she's like a rocket ship now (comparatively speaking) .  It's gonna hurt a little when I bump up to 35s

[Bnine]

I had the gear center do a quote to regear my front and rear axles in my dodge with me supplying the parts for $3000.

That cant be right. Must have been a misunderstanding through the communication. Labor costs at the gear should be in the range of 120$/hour and most differentials book out at 6-8 hours.

So even at the full 16 hours for two diffs you should be looking at 2000.

Regardless, I think they are very expensive.

[Bnine]

You should be right in the range of 2000$ to regear, not including any locker upgrades.

[Knox]

You should be right in the range of 2000$ to regear, not including any locker upgrades.

That's inline with what both Jay and Dave quoted me a while back. It's all well and good until you decide "while they're in there" I'll add an elocker with 2 days notice and cromo shafts... then you start getting into the 4k range haha. (no regrets)