How bad can it be?

Okay since I have just recently finished doing the gears in my 01 XJ. The front dana 30 was quite the ordeal. First I got the wrong gears, reverse cut instead of standard (giant pain got it worked out though), pinion and carrier bearings. So here is what I am left with a new set of 4.56 gears in the front and rear, new ball joints, u-joints for the front axles. After all this and quite bit of money I have discovered that my old gears were 3.55! After all the work I find out two days after completion that I may want to get a new carrier put in because there is a gear size break 3.55 and down (numerically) and 3.73 and up (numerically). So that leads me to the question and title of this column, "How bad can it be?" Everything runs fine, a little bit of noise in the front but no clunking, banging or anything. The pattern looked good on the ring when i checked with the compound. Let me know your thoughts. I could use them after this.

Hmmm.... thats odd, you sure it had 3.55s and not 3.73's? I really have no clue what the difference between the two carriers is.

You need a new carrier,can't imagine how it could possibly work!
Pics would be a plus.Did you get the TJ gear set and not the early LP D30 gears?

Wonder if they sent you thick gears to make up for the carrier height difference?

the_weirdo said:

Wonder if they sent you thick gears to make up for the carrier height difference?

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They never made them for the D30!

RCP Phx said:

You need a new carrier,can't imagine how it could possibly work!
Pics would be a plus.Did you get the TJ gear set and not the early LP D30 gears?

Click to expand...

X2... I don't understand how this could work at all, it's like accidentally putting d35 shafts in a 44 and driving it for a while without noticing. Not claiming you are wrong, just don't understand at all.

Are you sure it had 3.55s in it before? What were the stampings on the ring gear edge?

alright everyone is as confused as I was. The tag on the front end diff cover said 3.73. I pulled the gears and counted teeth after the install and 11 tooth on the pinion and 39 on the ring. Went to rusty's offroad and used there calculator and it says 3.55 gears. RCP PHx they never made what for the 30?

They never did thick cut gears for the 30 to the best of my knowledge... you may not have discovered this yet but RCP likes to post corrections to what someone else said, using the fewest words/spaces/punctuation marks as possible, and you may or may not need to already know what he's trying to say before you can figure it out depending on how much detail he includes.

Alrighty actually found out why it does work folks. Some of you may want to keep this little nugget of knowledge for your own and use later so here it is......The 01 XJ Sport has exactly the same front end as the 01 TJ. Dana 30 short pinion, it is also a low pinion from end that uses standard cut gears. Since it is the same front end as the TJ there is no carrier break, so no problem. So the answer to the post "HOW BAD CAN IT BE?" Well it isnt bad at all! Works fine. I found all this out from the 4wheel parts guys and G2 gears and axle guys. Thanks for all the help.

According to randy's ring and pinion (ringpinion.com) all d30s, including standard rotation, rearend, high pinion, HD, short pinion, etc have the same 3.54/3.73 carrier break... so I am really not sure now.

Of course they list the high pinion d30 as being 84-01 XJs and (separately, for some reason, even though some of these years did not have a sport model) 84-01 sport XJs, so their info may be wrong.

The difference in deck height is 0.133" according to justdifferentials.

Somethings definately wrong here,there is a carrier break! Pull the cover and get some pics!

I've never seen a D-30 that did not have a carrier break at 3.73, I hope to learn something new from this thread!