The latter is very true. And for the former ... I likewise apologize if I was offensive.

And BTW -- I actually did appreciate your reply -- it reminded me of a lot of things to check.

I wouldn't exactly say my feathers were ruffled, because it's the internet and we're all big boys here. I just rolled my eyes a bit at what I felt was a bit of a condescending reply (intended or not), made note of the items you mentioned, and then responded in what I thought was kind.

Thanks again for your response. Especially the time you took to flesh out the second one.

Didn't mean to get into questions of elitism, BTW. There are people from many different tax brackets on this board with wildly divergent priorities on how they spend their money.

You're right about what needs to be replaced. I just assumed the carrier would be beyond me. Will that come out if I pull both axle shafts or does it take special tools?

Like Mike said ... from my experience swapping out the whole axle is pretty clean and easy. But it's not like there won't be a lot of work involved as I will be switching over the brakes and the like.

you can remove the carrier yourself. simply pull the axle shafts, then 4 bolts to remove the carrier bearing caps, and pull. it won't come out easy, but thats all there is holding it in there.

now, just because you can remove it, i would NOT recommend replacing it yourself. there is nothing that garruntee's the gears will be setup the same/properly with the new carrier. In theory, any time you change carriers, the gear pattern should be checked/adjusted, even if the gears themselves stay the same. this is NOT a diy'er job.

-Rob

if you move the old ring gear to the new carrier and as long as the wear patterns look good on the old ring gear, you really shouldn't have any problems. I've replace a broken carrier that way before (actually kind of a cool story, Scout II uses almost the identical axle as the new isuzu D44)

But then again, I prolly agree with Rob on this one... I don't know which way is easier, I know how I would do it.... but when you have a 30 year old truck your mind set tends to be a little different when it comes to spending money on repairs.

Peter

yeah, perhaps. i've swapped carriers this way without changing a thing (verified by looking at the pattern of course), but i think this would be a poor assumption to think you can get away with it everytime. this won't always be the case, and you could wind up with a trashed ring and pinion in no time if it turns out to be incorrect.

rule of thumb... if you're changing out carriers, it *should* be checked by a gear installer that knows what to look for. doesn't matter whether you're going from a stock open unit to an ARB, or simply stock to stock.

-Rob