G80 CARRIER QUESTIONS

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Alonso

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I HAVE THE G80 IN MY 96 C1500 WITH FACTORY 3.42 GEARS, BUT I ALSO BOUGHT SOME RICHMOND 4.10 GEARS. WILL RICHMOND KIT WORK WITH MY G80 WITHOUT ANY SHIMS OR WITHOUT HAVING TO BUY A NEW DIFFERENT CARRIER UNIT?
 

Erik the Awful

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First off, you don't have to capitalize or use punctuation, but if you write in all lower case instead of all caps it's easier for us to read it.

Second, typically the requirement for shims is dependent on how it fits. If you get lucky and everything lines up perfect you don't need shims. More than likely you'll need shims. If you haven't done this, you might want to farm it out to a shop with experience. I personally haven't put a rearend together, but that wouldn't stop me if I had the shims handy.

If you have a G80 and the gears are for a G80, having a different carrier shouldn't make a difference. The shims aren't to make up for wear, they're to make up for loose machine work at the factory. Back in the day all the machine work was loose and everything was 'adjust to fit'. In the '80s the Japanese proved that tight tolerances at the factory cost less in the long run, and everybody tightened up their standards. Our trucks are built the old-school way, thus we need shims in the rearend.
 

brianmcb

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The kit will work with your g80, you "might" get lucky using all factory shims, but I doubt it. I just did motive 4.10s in my truck and had to mess with pinion shims as well as the carrier shims.

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Supercharged111

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G80 doesn't matter for gears. What matters is whether your truck has the 8.5 or 9.5" diff. I think the split in carriers is at a 3.23:1 ratio on the 8.5.
 

eshaw

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You should find out the carrier "break" (differential carrier deck height) before doing gears, it does make a difference. From what I see you should be good to go. As far as the shims go you may get lucky, then again you may not. It's always good practice to check the tooth contact pattern and backlash when setting up gears. It requires some special tools to do it correctly so if you haven't done it before you may want to check it out before you take things apart to see what you're getting into before proceeding.
 

Supercharged111

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You're more likely to get away with a carrier swap than a gear swap without changing shims.
 

DamHoodlum

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I replaced mine (9.5”)with a Eaton unit and couldn’t be happier.
Spins posi every time.
Well worth the time/money while you have it out.
 

Alonso

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It is a 8.5 ring gear size rear end. I’m understanding correctly, so just make sure to check tooth contact on gears and back lash, and everything should be ok as long as that checks out. Thanks for everyone’s responses, and sorry for writing in all caps. At work my computer always defaults to caps for the software program I use all day.
 
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