I'm doing doughnut in the parking lot again, and it is a matter of principal or save a few bucks. I have a set of 3.55's under dispute (damage in transit 1 small chip). Seller said no returns (my problem not his), Ebay said return it for refund (I lose shipping). Long story>short story On principal I should send it back and go find another set. Real world that is more time and unless I go used there isn't any thing out there for the same doe-ray-me.
Here are my choices:
1} Do what's right and toss more money down the crapper, send the gears back. I'll have to stick with the 327's patch the diff, and when I find gears do it again, cuz You know I'll have to have gears.
2} Take the Low road let the guy slide, install the gears, and roll the dice. Here is the damage



I know it is just a small chip, but you also know the odd's aren't so good to me some times are they.. Bottom Line, End Of The Day, Never Fails, and no matter what I do: Something will happen costing more money and or time. "Murphy's Law"
Enough wining its time for lunch, anyway, isn't this where you all get to feed me som BS line and tell me it is going to be ok, or offer up a condescending comment or two and try to cheer me up
Have fun Mike/EZ

Never install damaged parts in your car.

As a buyer, ebay is your friend. Open claim immediately and let the buyer biased rules work in your favor.

Never have had good luck with patch jobs anyway. Claim was started as soon as it arrived a week ago. Ebay ruled in my favor. So it is boxed and ready for Return, and all I lose out on is shipping. Now I have to find another set of gears and a set of Complete TPMS sensors for the GT wheels I picked up yesterday.

Are those FRPP gears? I've bought a lot of used parts but I got all new ones from ADTR.NET when I built my rear. Not for any reason. That's just the way it happened. lol

They caught me slipping. I bought a true trac and installed it before I ever looked at the cost of a trac loc. I was horrified when I realized that it was half the price. The true trac works awesome so far though. lol

Just send those gears back and forget about it. Get 3.73 or 4.10 gears.

Plus one on the TrueTrac.

I had all sorts of problems (some maybe my own fault) with the rear end of my Ranger with wheel hop and losing traction. I thought about a Traction-Lok, but came across a really good deal on a new in the box TrueTrac from an outfit in California... they even shipped it to me for nix. There are no clutches to burn out and it doesn't need friction modifier. It's all gears, and works similar to a Torsen. The TrueTrac along with a James Duff traction bar setup cured the traction troubles.

EZ, I'd have no ragrets (I know how I spelt it) installing those gears.

The ring gear damage is very minor and in a position where it will not mesh with the pinion gear. The pinion gear looks fine.

If it is shipping damage, there is no excuse for the seller to not wrap bubble wrap around the entire gear to protect it. You don't just toss parts in a box with a token piece of bubble wrap and call it properly packaged. I don't know why people think shippers (be it post office or courier) treat your package like fragile glass. THink thrown and dropped and wrap accordingly.

Alex.

the gears have been sent back, wouldn't 3.73 be to low for freeway driving? also I would have to get a tune, and I am not ready for that yet.

I have 3.73s in my '95 Mustang. I don't remember the ratio for my overdrive (it's a manual transmission), but 70 mph is about 2250 RPM. It gets annoying and really sucks gas if I go faster than that. It was more like 2000 RPM at 70 with the stock 3.08 gears.

A lot of the Marauder guys run 4.10s and I don't hear a lot of complaints about highway driving.

Marauders also have a 6000 or 6100 RPM redline.

I've got 13k miles on mine. At 80mph I'm just shy of 3k rpm. I'm getting a consistent 18.5mpg with a high stall and 255 tires (neither of those help the economy).

I drove briefly on a trac loc before I got the true trac in. They definitely work differently. The trac loc is either locked or not locked. So if you hammer it in a corner it locks and you slide. The true trac will transfer power instead of just locking. After it transfers the power to the better gripping wheel you can still over power it and slide.

The true trac's instructions said not to use friction modifier or oil with it built in. I guess it just causes extra wear. Because of that and lack of planning I ended up running AutoZone brand oil in mine. It's the only one they carried that didn't specify that it had friction modifier included.

Installed that axle on 3/6/2016. 13k miles since then.

Most of the parts are here, and if I'm shooting for putting it back together this weekend it will have to remain 3.27, for now anyway. Here is two of the new add on's for the diff. A 318C Trac-Loc and a girdle to lock it all together. On the trac-Loc I will need to disassemble it to soak the clutches wont I?