ring and pinion questions

ok heres a stupid question .... im putting 33'S on my 95 yj 4 banger . i know i need to change the ring and pinion . do i need to do this both front and rear axels ???? how difficult is it to change?? and what gear ratio should i go with thanks larry

you need to do both front and rear axles, I would reccommend having someone do the install, hopefully mopartec will chim in. as for the ratio i'm not sure if you should go 4.56 or 4.88 again hopefully someone with a 4 banger will chim and say whats best. HTH

Quote from "lw767"

ok heres a stupid question .... im putting 33'S on my 95 yj 4 banger . i know i need to change the ring and pinion . do i need to do this both front and rear axels ???? how difficult is it to change?? and what gear ratio should i go with thanks larry

With a 4banger you already have steeper gears than a 4.0 comes with.
the 4 cylinder auto has 3.73 gears while the manual has 4.10 gears.

4.56 gears will not be much of a change if you have 4.10 gears.
If you do look into 4.88's

On a side note I ran 33" tires on my 4 Banger with stock gears for 2 years. you do loose some power but, don't feel it is mandatory to change the gears you have. Try them first

to change the ring and pinion is a big deal if you dont know how to do it. first, you HAVE to do both axles at the same time, with the same ratio.
no way around this.

there are a few on this board who do some gear swaps. once you see how to do it, its not really that hard if you have the right tools.

Yes gear swaps are very involved. Find someone who knows how to do them and do it with them. Read everything you can find on doing gear swaps.It is a project that can absaloutly be done at home. You need some special that I'm sure several people have including me. Read everything you can find on gear swaps and talk to as many people as possible that have swapped gear. Here's a site I used helped a lot. There is a lot of info out there to help with swap.
http://www.differentials.com/install.html

I swapped our 4-banger to 4.56 with 32" tires, made a big difference, ran for about a year at 4.10's lost 5th gear cause engine could never get there. I'm am now a believer in right gear for right tire so you don't lug the engine. I swapped my XJ to 4.88's and man does it crawl. It's on 33" tires.

You have to do both diffs at the same time. Only way around this might be to do the rear and take out the front driveshaft until you can do the front. YOU CAN NOT USE 4-WHEEL DRIVE WITH DIFFERENT GEARS.(Unless your really mad at your jeep then have at it ) I'd recommend waiting and doing both at same much easier while your in the "groove" of changing gears.

Good luck. There is a great sense of accomplishment in doing it yourself not to mention a degree of security knowing if you break on the trail you know how to fix it. You won't need to rely on recovery vehicles and expensive tow trucks to get home.

I'm not sure what 4.88's are like on a 4 banger... but I ran 4.88's with 33's for a while in the 4.0L

If you have a manual tranny you'd better like shifting a lot! It is like driving a dump truck taking off from a light!

I spent about 1 second in 1st, 1.5 in 2nd, and "mabye" 3 seconds in 3rd.

With the manual tranny I was at 60mph at almost 3000 rpm.

With 32's ...

Quote from "deadfeat"

Actually you can but with different diameter tires. I saw a truck in a 4wd rag that had 44" rear and 37" front tires. With differnt gears compensating for the tire size. Looked pretty funky. I would reccomend somme sort of locker as long as you are opening things up.

Steve

that truck must have been for mud. those types do that kind of thing all the time.