Is it worth $1400 to re-gear a 09 JKU (non-rubi) on 35's to 5.13?

im on the fence about it... any real life experiences & opinions to help me decide would be appreciated.

 

Off road evolution has a $999.99 regear special that covers parts and labor.

I would look into getting a d44 front. I only say this because a lot of guys on here have regeared their d30s only to break parts and end up spending more money on repairs. You can find guys selling theirs or do what 99% of people here would say and get a prorock.

I ran a d30 for while and looked hard into upgrading it, but it wasn't worth it in the end. I found a used stock d44 on here and geared that.

Hope this helps.

 

thx for the tip, fullerton is too far away for me to get it done, seems locally 1400 is about the going rate for labor & parts.

as far as changing out the whole axle assembly, thought about that... my open diffs are actually doing pretty well for my needs, about 6 local rock crawling trips a year. I just lower the hell out of the tires and she keeps up with most locked diff'd rigs... does re-gearing a d30 weaken it somehow?

i did look for used d44 fronts and they dont seem to be very common... and shipping is $$...

 

I'm sure others could weigh in, but the pinion on the 5.13s is smaller and in a d30 it's smaller. If open works, the go with that. I went with 4.88s to Keep offroad gears without killing mpg. I ran 35s with stock gears forever, since 07. The concern with larger tires on the 30 is your C's. you'll get a bend.

I'm pretty sure northridge can build the axle and ship it for free?? Give them a call. Even if you don't buy anything they can give you a ton of knowledge and point you right.

 

Let me clarify the situation...

As far as off-road needs, im happy with OEM open diff's although i do BEAT on my jeep and it does see some pretty hard trails about 6 times a year. So far no problems.

My concern is with the sluggish performance & bad fuel mileage since going up to 35's, i would like better fuel mileage & better response/power. So i am contemplating going to 5.13's and adding an exhaust & intake.

Ofcourse, if I could upgrade to a d44 upfront, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but its not something i necessarily need at this point


with that in mind, would someone with similar experience say its worth the upgrade?

as always, thx.

 

10-4... thx for the advice, appreciated

 

It will be better without a doubt but if you're not going any bigger than 35" tires, I'd go with the 4.88 gears mentioned above.

 

Yes regearing weakens it. As you get lower gearing (numerically higher) the parts get smaller. I regeared my Dana 30 from 3.21's to 4.88's as I have the 6 speed and 35's. I thought 4.88's would be not too bad as you can get 5.13's for a dana 30. I left the front open as well thinking that along with 4.88's over 5.13's and careful use of the gas pedal would be the ticket to making the gears survive in my dana 30. I thought I did a ton of research you hear the people saying some people run 37's and bigger and survive so I was sure I would be fine.

This is what I ended up with.



I got this I beleive while reversing up a snow bank. Going really slow without wheel spin. So I did make mistakes as gears are stronger when the pressure is applied to forward direction as well because I was on a steep incline i had more weight on the front axle. I was surprised at how light I was on the throttle but who knows I may have cracked the teeth at an earlier date and finished them off this time.

Will this happen to you? Maybe not. Can it happen? Yes. Hindsight being what it is I wish I would have went ProRock from the get go. But I really did think I would survive. Plus I really thought it would be an axle shaft that got me not a ring gear and I thought if that happens oh well I will get some cro-mo's.

Now I should receive my ProRock 44 with 4.88's, airlocker, RCV shafts and 1310 front drive shaft from Northridge next weekish. This one better survive.

In case anyone is wondering the Dana 30 had evo gussets,sleeves, control arm skids, JKS Steering Stabilizer relocation and was regeared by Northridge 2 years ago so I wouldn't say there was an install problem.

As well if someone is in my area (Northern BC) and looking for a built Dana 30 and wanting to reagear it shoot me a PM.

 

Broken gears happen unfortunetly...

its definetly worth the cost to regear. its something you use everyday

 

I've done a few re-gears but not on the JK (yet).

My own experience and opinion says that if the money is available you can't go wrong by getting a computer-controlled drive train to think its running a final drive ratio that is close to stock or a little lower (numerically higher) than stock.

In other words, using lower gears with bigger tires will give you a drivetrain that runs the way the engineers planned - and it will be a lot more fun to drive as well.

If I did gears tomorrow, I'd calculate a ratio that would give me about the same RPMs at 60 MPH as the stock tires and gears, and then go one step lower.

Edit: One more thought - if your tires are so big that you can't get a decent ratio without using a thimble-sized pinion then you've discovered how costly it is to run big tires right. A pair of D60s is an expensive way to fly when slightly smaller rubber might do everything you ever want to do with the jeep. Just my opinion of course