anyone out there in the wonderful world of hamb ever done a gearswap on a closed driveline chevy? i got a 3:55-1 ge****t from patrick's to replace my 4:11S. it came with an instruction book and everything needed to completely rebuild the whole torque tube ***y. and rear end. i know i could do it, but i dont want to screw up the final adjustment(backlash, runout, etc.)and ruin my expensive ge****t. i think im just gonna breakdown and pay someone to do it, iv'e gone to a couple of my local rear end guys, and they all seem scared of it,and try to talk me into changing over to an open driveline. anyone between L.A. and sanbernardino have experience with these, and wanna make a couple bucks? or just help me out and i can do the greasy work?
If you're talking about changing out the gears in that '53 delivery that's in your avitar, I believe that used the car rearend, and the gears Patricks sells are for the truck rearends. If that's the case, then you'll need to look for a 50-54 car with a powerglide to get your 3:55 gears. Just swap out the whole torque tube section rather than tear it all down (***uming the 'glide rear is good to go as is). A factory shop manual would help...
patricks has em for cars now too, i made sure of that before i got em'. , as far as changing out the whole thing, that was plan A , but then i found out the tube on automatic cars was a few inches shorter.
I picked up a 3.55 center section with the torque tube for $200 (I looked for about 6 months and got tired of waiting for a deal). Slid it into my 51 with no problems. Much easier than doing the actual gear swap. By the way, Patricks sells the 3.55 gearing for both the truck and CAR. As long as you ordered (and they sent you) the correct one, you will be fine. I just double checked my catalog to make sure.
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