Moderator: volvite
That's what I was thinking. I should be able to do it. It's always nice to have s reference though haha. The only upside to the rebuild is they warranty it for the life of the ownership (apparently).moymurfs wrote:Swap it if it's cheaper, I would think it would be. Can you do the swap yourself? That would save $$$.
Hawairish wrote:Swapping is easy. Not sure about 45 mins...but not more than 2 hours wheels up/wheels down. I've done the swap twice this year mine and a buddy's R50 to go from open/4.363 to LSD/4.636 (with higher-torque LSDs).
If you just buy a used 3rd member, it just bolts right in. I paid about $140 from local JYs. Note this is just the 3rd member, and not the full axle.
You just need to undo the 4 nuts at the ends of the axles behind the brake backing plates, disconnect the brake lines, undo the parking brake attachments on the lower trailing arms, and then pull the axle shafts out a few inches.
Disconnect the driveshaft from the diff, undo 11 nuts, remove the 3rd member. Doable with a floor jack. I removed and installed mine without help, but it's a heavy bastard.
Too bad you didn't need open/4.363 diff...got a pair of those! You can find 4.636 on 96-02 R50s (03-04 only had 4.363), and some 00-02 Frontiers/Xterras...I would avoid the latter if you can because they had two versions of HG46 gears.
Hawairish wrote:Swapping is easy. Not sure about 45 mins...but not more than 2 hours wheels up/wheels down. I've done the swap twice this year mine and a buddy's R50 to go from open/4.363 to LSD/4.636 (with higher-torque LSDs).
If you just buy a used 3rd member, it just bolts right in. I paid about $140 from local JYs. Note this is just the 3rd member, and not the full axle.
You just need to undo the 4 nuts at the ends of the axles behind the brake backing plates, disconnect the brake lines, undo the parking brake attachments on the lower trailing arms, and then pull the axle shafts out a few inches.
Disconnect the driveshaft from the diff, undo 11 nuts, remove the 3rd member. Doable with a floor jack. I removed and installed mine without help, but it's a heavy bastard.
Too bad you didn't need open/4.363 diff...got a pair of those! You can find 4.636 on 96-02 R50s (03-04 only had 4.363), and some 00-02 Frontiers/Xterras...I would avoid the latter if you can because they had two versions of HG46 gears.