Well, FINALLY got my rear-end finished and swapped in last week and what a difference!
Old one ready to drop...
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Cutting out old, twisted hangers and shackles... oh.. and check out that custom hitch install. LMAO.. the guy was actually pulling with this setup.. Yeah.. that's all going in the scrap pile.
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Shouldn't these be straight...ish?
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Burning out old bushings... good times.
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Energy Suspension bushings all around...
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In position with all new hardware...
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Had to get creative with the e-brake cable hold downs.. mine were gone.
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All buttoned up and ~100 miles on it. New Bilstein shocks and new parking brake cables (beautiful thing to have working parking brakes!)
The 4.88 gears are amazing with the 37s. Truck drives soo much nicer now. Also, since the old pinion bearings were gone, all of my driveline vibration is gone now. The fresh brakes and dually 1.25" bore wheel cylinders make stopping much nicer. I'll be stepping up to hydroboost soon. The shop that swapped gears for me said the LSD clutches looked like new. After 100 miles.. some 50mph runs... the diff cover barely gets warm and the hubs stay cool. No play or odd noises...
Basically now that everything behind the cab that moves is new... it's a night and day difference in how it drives.
Anyways.. Got a few hundred miles to go and I'll dump the oil and install my new aluminum diff cover.. top it back off with 75/140 synthetic and let it roll.
Now come fall... to build the front end the same way.