Hi Dave,

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The lowest cost for puting a used rear 26 spline LSD in the front would be if the 7.5" ring gear can stay on the diff and the rear pinion can be transfered to the front 3rd member housing.


This is unlikely as the third member housing may have been altered front to rear to allow for the larger ring and therefore the less "reach" required by the pinion.

Only trying it will tell. It depends on the exact location of the pinion bearing in the housing. From the cross section of the housing in my manual, there is enough "meat" in the casting to move the pinion depth position over 1/2" but it only needs to be moved a maximum of 1/4". From a machining standpoint, boring out the housing 1/4" less depth would be easy.


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I hope the pinion hypoid offset is the same in both front and rear to allow proper mesh if the rear ring and pinion has to be installed in the front 3rd member housing.


Will most likely be different for the above reasons (think of it as "scaling up")

Again only trying will tell. From a CNC machining standpoint, it would be slightly easier to use the same offset rather than "scaling up" since the fixturing would not need to be changed.


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If the overall differential dimensions are the same (as per the Eaton diagram discussion earlier) then a double drilled ring mounting seat is a possibility. As for the requirement for a sleeve for the larger ring, I wonder if this would be necessary given the very marginal lip that appears to be present on the existing rear diff (Daves photos), looks more like machining of the casting than an actual purposeful locating lip.

We would absolutely need a spacer ring. The ring gear needs to be centered within a couple of thousands of an inch and you could not do that with just bolts that don't have a cone seat.

Ron Schroeder
Long Island NY
99 4DR auto Sportage, 30x950R15 tires, 3/4" strut spacer, rear air springs, Manual Hubs, FRONT Torsen LSD
00 Safari AWD, 2" lift, 30x9.50 tires, 4x4 conversion in progress
73 Pinzgauer Swiss Army troop carrier