Funny! The good thing about 4.11s when going down the highway is how quickly you can accellerate while rolling. (assuming your engine is built for the rpm...) Someone flips you off while passing you at 80, you can be fender to fender with them before they fold their finger up! Their eyes get real big when they find out you can do that, and the engine spinning 5500 rpm just adds to the intimidation. When I daily drove with 4.11s, there was a guy in an old Honda that went to work at the exact same time in the AM. We both had to travel a route where 2 highways merged together, and all the lanes bottlenecked for a very short distance before opening back up again. Every AM this guy would come blasting by me, weaving through cars like no one's business. Inevitably he would always force his way over in the merge, cutting off anyone in his way. I would see it either a few cars ahead or behind. The person cut off would usually have to slam brakes and get generally PO'd. I swore the guy would never do that to me. I minded my own business, until the day it was my turn to get forced over. I jammed the Mav into 2nd gear, Pete Jackson screamed out loud , and this guy, who was flyin' by me a second earlier, just barely got his car stopped short of the concrete merge barricade. He couldn't come over on the screamin' yellow flash to his right! I don't recall ever seeing him force a car over again.
i too am wondering how hard the swap is. like to think of myself as being pretty mechanically inclined but diong something for the first time is a little intimidating lol anything else that should be purchased? im assuming the instilation kit would be a good idea but is it really necessary? can you just bolt in the gears as is? and a new carrier/housing gasket
4.11's are not bad if you have overdrive....I have a t5 I end up in 5th gear on counntry roads. The only problem with the combo is that the t5 has a low 1st gear, so first gear is kinda useless. I,m thinking of maybe 3.50's or 3.89's .all depends on your powertrain combo...
The work to swap gears is not too hard. I did it the hard way and did it from scratch, re-alligning all the gears and shims, etc. I later heard that I could have just popped the gears in there and kept the same shims and adjustments and been mostly done with it. Maybe even reuse the crush sleeve... Not sure how to go about doing it that way, but there are guys on here who could help out. Only thing I could NOT do was torque down the pinion nut enough to crush the crush sleeve. You may be better off to just spend another $100 to have someone with the correct tools set it up for you. I ended up taking mine out after 3 years and just last month had that crush sleeve and pinion nut torqued down. Made a world of difference, and made it silent, where I had a whine when I let off the gas before...
ok i am getting 411, thanks guys send photo when i start on the gears.right now i am in the process of painting the car so much body work a lot of cutting and welding.
When you put in new gears you can calculate the new shims by comparing the numbers on the new pinion with the numbers on the old pinion. Get the Haynes "Ford V8 Mustang Owners Workshop Manual" for 65 through 73. It has a great section on how to overhaul the 8 and 9 inch rear ends. The Chiltons manual doesn't have squat!
I just did my gears, and bought a kit. If you do it you'll need it, I tried to set the pinion depth with the factory shim, and it was too far out from where it was suppose to be, plus the kits come with new bearings, if your going to the trouble to tear it apart, then it's time for bearings. That was the fun part, I had to go borrow a huge torque wrench for a buddys shop, and it was all I could do to get it set.
when you order the gears get the set up video also. jegs and summit sell them. that will tell you what you need to know about how to install them.
i think the richmond gear set is just under $200 and the instilation kit was like $80. the summit brand gears are like $125. if you still have an open rear dont pay extra for the kit that comes with the friction modifier.
what do you mean by open rear? do you mean like take the bolts off and open it up, no i have not done that. are the richmond gears better i see they cost more than the summit ones are they better quality, or is the summitt ones just as good
an open rear would be the oppsite of a posi/tracloc rear, only one wheel spins. all mavs were open rear cars stock. the friction modifier is used to saturate the clutch plates in a posi rear im sure the summit gears are of a lower quality then the richmonds but i figure if im not putting a serious amount of power through them they'll probably live a long and happy life
Don't forget to break those new gears and bearings in properly! No point in burning a set of new gears up because you are impatient.
OK, maybe I'm just blind, but I've been looking on the summit website for 3:80's for my 8" rear for my '73 Mav, and I just cant seem to find it. Can anyone help out with a part number I can search for? Thanks guys!
