New Ford 9" 3rd member.. set gears?

My friend blew out the spiders in his rear 9". He just got a rebuilt 3rd member in the mail today. Can he just pop it back into the axle and be good to go? Or will he need to have the gears re-set?

Jeep450r said:

My friend blew out the spiders in his rear 9". He just got a rebuilt 3rd member in the mail today. Can he just pop it back into the axle and be good to go? Or will he need to have the gears re-set?

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3rd members are set up on the bench and then installed, one of their more charming features.

Thats the point of having a 9"

As long as the gears were properly set up to begin with it is plug and play.

jeeperjohn said:

As long as the gears were properly set up to begin with it is plug and play.

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Oh sure, you have to bring THAT up! :roflmao:

Alright so it turns out he got he wrong carrier. He has 31 spline shafts but bought a 28 spline 3rd member on accident. Is there any way for him to take parts off his old 3rd member and swap them into the new one so his axle shafts will fit in? I'm not very familiar with he insides of these axles. Any other cheap options?

Jeep450r said:

Alright so it turns out he got he wrong carrier. He has 31 spline shafts but bought a 28 spline 3rd member on accident. Is there any way for him to take parts off his old 3rd member and swap them into the new one,...

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Your OP said he blew out the spider gears, so he's probably hosed as far as swapping his old parts. The parts you would need to trade out would be the side gears, which would have been chewed up in the blowout. Randy's R&P lists a new carrier for 28 and 31 spline as the same, so the parts would trade.
Here'sa spider gear set, but it's not cheap:http://www.ringpinion.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProdID=2193
This is for a 4-pinion carrier, the 2-pinion carrier would be cheaper. Anyway, he can get the parts, but probably not from his old 3rd member.

Tell him to get a properly splined detroit.