What is it meant by "thick gear"

I am looking to get some gears and some sites show a thick gear or standard. How do I know what to get? I thought I read somewhere that you can use the smaller carrier to use lower gear (numerically higher) if you buy the thick gear....is that right? Or are they 'thicker" from the gear face to the back face and I ask that because when I installed my lockrites I had to pull the ring gear to get the drive pin out and I read that there were some cases that allowed you to take it out with out doing so. Can someone clear this up for me as to what they mean by thick gear? If it matters, these are going in a stock XJ D44 standard rotation and a stock XJ D30 reverse rotation from 3.55 's to 4.10's. I already have carriers on the way to make the change due to the break point in gear sizes to carrier.


Thanks!
Brett

i've seen the "thick gears" advertised for the rubicon because those axles use the taller gear ratio carrier i believe. using the thick gears compensates for the carrier break so the rubicon owners dont have to buy new diffs when changing to 4.88s. correct me if i'm wrong anyone?????

TJ's do not have a carrier difference for the rear 44 they use. They just have a thicker gear. The Rubicon locker use special gears that are not interchangeable with other 44's. Case Changes: 3.73 & down, 3.92 & up
. Since you already bought the carrier for 4.10's you just need the standard gears. If you bought the TJ gears you could have kept the original carrier.

The thick gear set is simply a thicker ring gear allowing any standard rotation dana 44 3.54 and down carrier to be used with a gearing of 3.54 and up.

4.88 is the highest ratio they make for thick gears. (for the 44 atleast)

So in short, thick gears allow you to use high gearing, (4.11, 4.88) on a carrier or locker made for low gearing. (3.54s)

Hope this helps!

XJRubicon said:

The thick gear set is simply a thicker ring gear allowing any standard rotation dana 44 3.54 and down carrier to be used with a gearing of 3.54 and up.

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The Dana 44 carrier split is 3.73 & down, 3.92 & up. http://www.drivetraindirect.com/ring_and_pinion_jeep.htm Also the carrier shouldn't matter standard or reverse rotation, only the gears.