switching gears

[Jason25]

Ive already purchased the drive shaft aurbun pro and richmond 3.73 gears. I was reading some post and get the feeling it might just be easier to pay someone to install them, is this the case? i know people who have switched out gears before but if its going to be to much of a PITA, i might as well pay to have it installed

[98Camaro3.8]

See the last post in this very forum:
http://www.camarov6.com/ubb/ultimate...=004544#000002

It's said all the time that installing gears is best left to professionals. You need to be very precise with the measurements or you'll end up with whiney gears or worse.

[terminaldegree]

I just paid a professional $300 in labor to do it for my car last week.

No leaks. No noise. LSD works great.
Yes, my wallet is lighter. But I don't have to tear it apart and do it again and again until it's just perfect.

FWIW, I hired a shop that does only transmissions and differentials-- they work primarily on the big rigs...

[00 Silver 6]

how long did it take for them to put the gears in?

[SilverRS96]

i did gears once but it wasnt on my Camaro...i shattered my spider gears in my YJ...not somethin i wanna do again...leave it to a shop

[Jason25]

so if your friend was the mechanic and hes changed out gears before on his car would u let him do it or still do it professionally?

[Jason25]

terminal how long did it take for u to get your car back? was that 300 for just the gears or the lsd to?

[terminaldegree]

That $300 was labor only. I brought my own rebuild parts and the limited slip "carrier" and fluids.

One other shop I checked wanted $400 for the labor, and another wanted $390 [6 hours @ $65/hr].
The job took one day. Pretty much most of the day, though.

If your friend was a real mechanic and had experience with diffs [f-bodies aren't the easiest to do this on, btw], and has the tools like the dial gauges and bearing pullers, and you got all the correct rebuild parts... then yeah, I'd trust him to do it.

Beware some of the used LSD carriers out there. I got a used one where a broken carrier bearing shredded the carrier itself a little and they couldn't install it. The one I have now was a zero mileage SLP takeoff unit. It cost me $110 and I got it from the "for sale" section on the board here. Got lucky on that one-- the car feels just amazing!

The required skill level is above that of general maintenance and repairing wear items/replacing fluids. Notice that I'm selling some leftover/extra parts from a rebuild kit, btw.