I have a O/T 3/4 Chevy Pickup with a 8 lug Dana rear end with 4.56 gears. I would like to change the ring & pinion to something more freeway friendly. Does anybody know of a shop in Socal (preferably in the Inland Empire) who can do this??
It might be easier and less expensive to pick up a complete rear end with road friendly gears. I picked up complete drum to drum a 3.54 Posi for my 71 GMC for 150 a while back to get rid of the 4.11 gears. Then you should be able to sell the 4.56 Rear to a rock crawler for about the same money as you paid you might even find a trade with someone. Otherwise it shouldn't be hard to find a shop that can do the gear swap.
Next tip, to change to a gear ratio faster than 4.56 in a Dana 60, you will be buying a differential carrier because the ring gear face will be moved farther away from the pinion centerline. The carrier change happens between 4.10 fast/4.56 slow. The fastest ratio for a Dana 60 using Dana gears will be 3.55 ratio.
It depends on what type of carrier you want. A "standard" "one wheel wonder" empty carrier (no axle gears, etc inside) should cost you between $100-175. After that, pick your poison. Trac-Lock, Detroit Locker, old axle spline dimensions with only aftermarket availability. Because of the carrier/ratio change, you will need to know what axle spline count and size measured with a caliper or "mike". Do some math. You know you are on 4.56 ratio. Figure our what RPM's at let's say 60 MPH. Divide the known RPM's by 4.56 and multiply by the projected RPM's by 3.55, 3.73, 4.10 to find where you want to be. Use that as a baseline. If you don't know what the donor vehicle is, you'll need to pull the ring and pinion out of the housing and hope they are Dana gears with the catalog easy five digit part numbers starting with a 3 or 4. If I have that good info or give me some "guesswork" info, PM me and I can help with probable short shipping distance directly to you. SLC, Fresno, LA, Portland, Denver, etc warehouses for Dana parts.
A link to the Mark Williams site. I'm not making suggestions or recomendations but he has useful info. http://www.markwilliams.com/dana60.aspx?CategoryID=212 http://www.markwilliams.com/detail.aspx?ID=1009 Plus an install kit and the gear set plus labor to do the install and probably a few other pieces.
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