I call around today and only was able to get ahold of one mechanic in this area. And the one I got wanted $480+ to take out the old gears and put in the new gears. Put I'm not made of cash, so I just wanted to know if anyone knew if this conversion is possible by a semi-newb-gear-head. I've done work on my car before, but I haven't taken on anything like this. Any ideas? Also I live in the Norman, Oklahoma area.

 

Naw, I don't suggest you do it yourself. You should call around some more. Try a transmission shop. The inconvenient thing about installing gears is the pinion depth. You have to press and unpress the pinion bearing to install the shims. Of course that takes a press and other hardware. Obtaining a nice pattern is just patience. Then theres the crush collar, but that isn't too bad. You just need a great impact and inch pound torque wrench if you haven't done it before. A shop might not use a dail indicator to measure backlash, but a newbie should until you've done quite a few. Get a full installation kit for the gears and tell the shop that you should have all the parts including shims that you will need. This should drop the price some. $200 would be fair or even the high side of fair. They should be able to get it done within 2 hours.

 

im a car newb, everyone told me not to do it, but I had the ***** and stupidity to do it.
It took me a few days. At first it was real hard to find my backlash cause I didnt know what I was doing wrong.
I wouldnt do it if I were you. It is really hard.
I read at least 3 guides and knew the guides by heart.
I shaved my pinion so I wouldnt have to keep on pressing and unpressing the bearing.
Its not something you want to tackle.
I would've rather just bought a new rear-end. Its easier to do when the rear is not attatched to the car.

 

I wouldn't suggest doing it yourself. Paying someone else to do that sort of thing is just fine.

 

Not that I'd suggest someone with limited mechanical knowledge try this, but I have installed gears in at least 4 cars without using any special tools and they've all came out PERFECTLY. The key is to re-use the stock crush sleeve and sand the pinion to aid in bearing removal if needed. Doing both of these, I would use an impact to tighten the pinion nut until it was difficult to start turning the yoke using your pinky and thumb. Each time I have done it this way, the wear pattern on the teeth is dead on using marking compound. Only once have I seen a huge problem occur, and that was when putting 3.42 gears made for a 3 series carrier on a 2 series carrier. The large spacer needed to install the gear screwed everything up and it took a couple days to actually get it shimmed right. Some people may say my way of doing it is completely wrong, but I have put thousands of miles and hundreds of drag strip passes on all the cars I have done and not one has had any sort of failure.

 

extreme performance in okc is probably the best shop for this. there is also sooner motorsports in norman