[caveeagle]

If I was in your shoes, I would diffinately be looking to upgrade to a Trac-Loc or Detroit Locker. You did not mention what gears you have now, or are moving to, but for almost any performance application, you will be better off with a limmited slip type diff.

I did my own rebuild of an 8" a few years ago and found it to be pretty straight fwd. There are a couple god sources to help you along the way. The ford 8" or 9" diffs are by far the easiest to work on.

As far as tools go, you will need a decent dial indicator, a digital caliper, a press and some good press-spacers appropriate for pressing bearings onto the pinion gear. I got the dial indicator and caliper guage online, but I found the same ones avail cheaper at harbor freight. I borrowed a friends hydr press and we tool out of steel pipe to press on the pinion and carrier bearings.

You are also supposed to use an Inch/lb torque wrench to set the pinion bearing pre-load, but I think we did it by 'feel'.

The major advantage to setting up a ford 8/9" is the fact that the pinion bearings seat into a removable pinion support. So you start by setting up your pinion bearing pre-load and you can adjust the pinion depth by changing shims between the pinion support and the diff case after the fact. This is not the case for the ford 8.8" (and others), where you have to reset the pinion bearing preload any time you need to change the pinion depth.


If you don't think you will enjoy getting in this deep, I would recommend one of the ebay differential sellers. IIRC, you can get into a rebuilt 3rd member for around $800 with your choice of gears and a Trac-Loc unit. I have not used them personally, but they have been around for a while and seem to have decent feedback.