Silly gear break-in question...

[NotMatt]

Alright, so how do I go about breaking in my front gears once I'm done setting them up? Obviously the 500 miles in short increments (or stop & go) is best, but if I don't have it in 4wd (231 TC on dry pavement = no no), then how do the fronts break in properly... should I be concerned with this, or am I just nit-picking over nothing?

[JungleXJ]

When I ran my 4.56s I just drove around in 2wd and they are wore in fine. I don't think you need to break them in on 4wd... I could be wrong though

[verrive]

I think I'm with JungleXJ on this one. Despite the fact its not in 4WD, unless you upgraded to some Warn hubs or something, the gears and pinion are still turning. I just changed my front oil after brake in of my gears and everything looked fine with little use of 4WD

[Bender]

I broke in some 4.56 gears last year and did the usual...first 500 miles stop and go with some short hard acceleration in the last 100 miles. I did this all in 2wd and after those 500 miles I went to change the diff fluid to remove any particles from the gear break in....I found the rear diff has metal dust in the fluid like I expected but the front didn't. However, after my first wheeling trip using 4wd the front diff fluid looked just like the rear did after the gear break in. From this I'm assuming the fronts didn't fully break in until I had the truck in 4wd and used it.

So, I'd say you can do your normal break in 2wd but be sure to change the front diff fluid after your first wheeling trip.