Pulling diff gears from Gen 2 SR

All-Terrain

No Road Required
Found a '95 SR, not running, for cheap. It's hammered. Some rust.

All I really want are the diff gears, so I can go with something more aggressive than the 4.27's in my '99.

What does it take to remove the old stuff from the SR? Do I have to pull the entire rear axle, or can you get to the gears by opening the rear diff? Same for front?

Thanks!
 

tyty13

Adventurer
Found a '95 SR, not running, for cheap. It's hammered. Some rust.

All I really want are the diff gears, so I can go with something more aggressive than the 4.27's in my '99.

What does it take to remove the old stuff from the SR? Do I have to pull the entire rear axle, or can you get to the gears by opening the rear diff? Same for front?

Thanks!
You should just need the 3 member and the entire front Diff.
 

BEG

Adventurer
The rear has a third member, so the gears come out as one unit. For the front I think you'd have to pull the whole front diff housing, which isn't that much bigger since it's IFS.
 
You should just need the 3 member and the entire front Diff.

Bingo. For the rear, unbolt the hubs, slide the wheel/axle assembly out at least 6" both sides, unbolt driveshaft, unbolt the bolts around the 3rd member, use some heavy force to break the factory glue seal. Remove the 3rd member.

Front was more pita to me. Remove both axles, and various brackets til you get to the whole diff. It's pretty self explanatory once you are under there.

I posted pics on one of my old threads when I swapped mine.
 

nckwltn

Explorer
I've done that exact swap myself last year.

the 3rd member is heavy as all get out. So be ready to catch it when it comes loose. But the rear is really simple to remove just as billygoats said. You probably only need to pull the rear axles out ~4 inches. at the junk yard, I just yanked and didn't worry about other connectors, but on mine I did unclip the brake cable, and be cautious that you don't tug too much on the wheel speed sensors. I removed my wheels at home because it takes weight off the axle.

The front is a pain. You can pull just the gears, but then they need to get setup in your housing. I ended up pulling the whole front axle tube from the 95 and putting it in my 99. To get it back into my 99, I ended up pulling out a cross member to give me more room, but once I pulled out the cross member, the it was a big challenge to put back in because up on the jack stands, things shifted just enough.


You'll need the axle shafts from your 99 front, as the flanges from the 95 and 99 aren't the same.

The 95 has the 4.636 gears, and with my 33" tires, the speedo is spot on with a GPS. So I think you end up with the same engine to wheel ratio on 33s after the swap as stock tires before.


I did mine easily in a weekend, and have a thread on it somewhere here as well.


when you're done, don't screw up your current rear 3rd.... it'll have a locker that some poor owner of a '00 without a locker might want :)
 

nckwltn

Explorer
Yes, there is one air hose, I don't think it's clamped because unlike arb lockers, this is a low pressure system
 

nckwltn

Explorer
10mm, 12mm, 15mm & 17mm

combination of sockets and box wrenches.


I swear, you can probably take the entire vehicle apart with those sizes.


plus diff fluid, don't get ones limited slip additives, they aren't good for lockers. You may need a breaker bar. Set of jack stands makes it easier to work under the car. Jack to lift the 3rd member into place (can help with the front as well).

If you have to replace the pinion seal on the 3rd member, you might need to make one of these (click and scroll to see another shot of it):


this might be helpful too:




 

All-Terrain

No Road Required
How much time should I budget just to remove this stuff from the donor truck? It is already up off the ground, lifted at the frame, no wheels on it.
 

jeep-N-montero

Expedition Leader
How much time should I budget just to remove this stuff from the donor truck? It is already up off the ground, lifted at the frame, no wheels on it.

First time for you I would plan on 5 hours per axle, cut that in half the second time you do it. Some of us can pull an axle in under an hour but have experience doing so, nothing to be scared of though and pretty hard to screw up.
 

All-Terrain

No Road Required
First time for you I would plan on 5 hours per axle, cut that in half the second time you do it. Some of us can pull an axle in under an hour but have experience doing so, nothing to be scared of though and pretty hard to screw up.


5 hours per axle, that's nuts. I was hoping to get both out in 3-4 hours.
 

nckwltn

Explorer
an hour or two for the back...

if you drop the cross member that the front is connected to, you'll save a lot of time on that. Undo the cross member last, totally disconnect the front from the axle shafts first, and it should come out "fairly easily"... but it's heavy.


If you have an impact gun, that will save a good amount of time as well, because there are a lot of bolts to undo.
 

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