8.25 Rear End Help
 

Hey all,

My Pinion bearings in my 97 29 spline 3.07 gear 8.25 rear went belly up. I found a 98 29 spline 3.55 gear 8.25 rear end at the junk yard, it was missing the axles and the spider gears and shims fell out. Can I use my existing axles & carrier in the new rear end, if i swap the ring gears to use in the new axle?? Is this an easy fix??
:help:
my XJ is a 92, 5 speed 2WD with 97 8.25 rear end 3.07 gears, 4.5" lift, running 32 BFGs

You might consider getting a beater 4x4 XJ and transpose the front and rear axles onto yours. Make sure to add the 4x4 badge to yours afterwards! :D

Those shims are the whole ball game. Its technical stuff beyond me but they are calibrated with the ring gear if im not mistaken. When those things are out of whack stuff breaks. If i were you id go grab an axle from the jy. The always have plenty of c8.25. Heck if your at the point of putting gears in you may as well upgrade if you have the cash.

Ok, Thats what I what i was dreading. haha, I guess my gonna go drop $200 at the JY for a 27 spline 8.25 with 3.55 gears. Cheers!

Good luck buddy sorry for the bad news. A regear would be over a $1,000. Try and find a later model xj, they have the 29 spline c8.25. I just pulled an axle today so....make sure you have a buddy cuz these things are boat anchors.

Yeah, I know they weigh a ton. Just picked one up for $180 at the JY. It came out of a 92 Auto, 27 spline, 3.55 gears. I wanted a 29 spline but had to settle. I'm thinking of keeping my 29 spline and having it rebuild in the future. Maybe... Haha

I was so confused for about 5 mins here trying to figure out how you planned to go from 3.07 to 3.55 without re-gearing SOMETHING, until I realized you're in a 2wd lol.

If you ever decide to build an axle, you can actually build the 27 or the 29 spline. If you build the 27, all you need to do is buy 29 spline aftermarket shafts and a 29 spline full case locker, and boom, now you've got a c8.25 29 spline axle again :)

Theoretically, you can switch your 29 spline carrier from your current axle, along with the shafts, ring, and pinion. While I have not done it, from everything I've watched, the work involved isn't *hard*, but extremely time consuming.

The shims you mentioned set backlash, preload, and there are shims to set the ring gear position, and shims to set the pinion gear depth. It takes a long time to get it right because even with the right preload and backlash, if the ring and pinion gears are not in the right position in relation to each other, you have to take it all apart, and re-assemble with shims in different locations to get a good contact pattern between the gears.

Anyway, sounds like you got yourself a good temporary fix to the problem, so the rest will be fun stuff to add to the list of crap to do to the Jeep right? lol