Cost for Differential Swap

Whats up guys,

I'm considering swapping a Truetrac into the rear of my 2009. From what I understand my truck has 3.73 gear ratio, currently the plan is to keep stock gear ratio and just do the rear but i'll be going up to 285/75/16's soon enough so I might also consider regearing to 4.10.

Anyway, I called two shops for an estimate for just the rear Truetrac, and the first quoted me $1800 for everything (Truetrac carrier, labor, and other parts/ shims and things). The second quoted me $1600-1700, rough estimate. Does this sound about right? Sounds high to me...

 

Could always do it yourself. Shops markup the cost of parts to cover their overhead. Just a fact. Shops charge labor. Mechanics have to feed their families.
Shop cost initially- 100k to god only knows what
Lift- 25k+
Tools-500 dollar impact to take wheels off
Socket to take wheels off- 50 bucks
Other tools- probably over a few thousand.
If you don’t have any of the things to do it yourself, sounds like a bargain to me. Make sure to get your speedometer recalibrated for the bigger tires.

 

Thats wayyyyyyy to much. look into other shops. shit the dealer did mine at $1400.00 to the whole truck with my yukon gears of choice!




For that kind of money you can get a diamond axle housing and build your own much much nicer axle. but if you cant build it then you screwed and it's gonna cost a lot


Get all your parts list and price list 1st. and then find out who can install at the best price.

 

The Truetrac with free shipping from Summit in Ohio is about $500 bucks....... Installer needs to be Toyota savvy - and you need to have new, quality bearings installed.

Price sounds high to me.... they aren't building a shop for your job alone....

 

That's way high just for a carrier swap. If you get new carrier bearings only, all they really need to do is transfer the ring gear over and put the OE shims back in the same spot. Pinion depth will be unchanged. Check the pinion baring preload and make sure they get it to 6inch#'s. Then check back lash, get it to about 6-9 thousandths, then carrier bearing preload n done. Ship me your diff n I'll do it for much cheaper.

 

If I had the knowledge and experience I would definitely just do it myself. If that were the case, I wouldn't have posted in the first place. I much prefer to do my own work, but frankly I don't trust myself to do this job without screwing it up.

 

Are you regearing both diffs? It says you are 4x4

 

The breakdown for the $1800 dollar estimate was something like this:

$550ish for carrier
$600 for labor
$200 sumthing for gears (from what i understand, I dont need new gears if i'm keeping stock ratio?)
remainder for bearings/ shims/ fluid/ etc.

Never would think that I could SAVE money going to the dealer, but at this point, sounds like that's a decent option lol

 

The estimates that I got are for just the rear swap, stock gearing. But i do plan to go up to 285's, not sure if it's recommended to regear or not for that tire size. I do understand that i'd need to do both front and rear if I did that and it would cost around double for labor.