jmburton1993

I'd love to just swap the gears in mine but I'm on a college budget, aka broke, a d I just can't afford

mkraffert

You might also want to consider a 97-98 Expedition (possibly later years too). Then you can upgrade to rear discs and keep the 12mm lugs.

jmburton1993

Do you know of any write ups on the swap from drums to discs?

mkraffert

No. I did it for the front brakes on a couple old cars (67, 68 Mustangs and Cougars) but never on a rear end. I had to change out the master cylinders for those, so I would assume the same change would be required here since the calipers have a higher fluid capacity than the wheel cylinders on drum brakes. Also, I don't know how it would impact the ABS system.

ghostrider

I am thinking of doing basically the same swap on my 98 2wd with drum brakes, open diff, and 3.55's. I've located the donor 9.75 that has disc brakes, limited slip 3.73's from a Harley truck. Anybody know if the brake lines are anywhere near the same locations? When I get home I am going to check to see how much room I will have as far as drive shaft length. I am fairly sure that mine is different from most being that I have a m5r2 manual trans not the auto.

Anybody know if the brake booster is the same?

nic000ss

So what does swapping the gears do? And what's the difference in the 8.8 and what not
What is the difference? I see it effects mpg but does it help or hurt speed or anything

me1234

Lower gearing(higher #'s) will make your truck speed up faster, however it will hurt your mpg. Higher gears(lower #'s) will make the truck spee up slower but have higher mpg. If you have larger than stock tires lower gears are better bc it takes more power to speed up bigger wheels and tires. If the gears aren't changed and bigger tires are used, the truck looses acceleration(aka it will be a slug).
As for the rearends i cant answer that question. My truck's all stock and I dont plan on changing it so I havent look up the difference between them.

ghostrider

The 9.75 is much stronger of a rear than the 8.8, has generally larger brakes, towing capacity, and IMO can just handle more power.

Danruff93

And that 9.75 is a LS diff

2000fordf1504x4

Not all if them are limited slip and I've managed to kill two 9.75 rear ends