? on new gears for 81 CJ7

Gears will have to be setup regardless. Not sure about the definition of "loaded" carrier, but I would guess it's like a trac-lock or Detroit where the carrier is part of the limited slip. You then bolt on the ring gear. I paid about $500 to have my front and rear gears installed and setup. That included labor for u-joints in the front and locker in the rear.

-- JimG

80' CJ-7 258 CID 35" BFG MT on 15x10 Centerlines D44 Rear, Dana 30 Front. SOA 4.56 Gears, LockRight F&R Dana 300 w/4:1 & Currie twin sticks Warn X8000i w/ dual batteries

The carrier is the part that the Ring Gear mounts to. The way they change the gear ratio is by altering the number of teeth on the ring and pinion gears. Divide the number of teeth on the rign gear by the number of teeth on the pinion gear, and the result is the ratio. A 4.10 gear set will have 41 teeth on the ring gear, and 10 teeth on the pinion. 41/10 = 4.10.

A 2.73 gear set is going to have something like 41 and 15, respectively. Obviously, a pinion gear with 10 teeth will be a different diameter than a pinion gear with 15 teeth, so the ring gear must be moved from its present location to a new location that is nearer to the centerline of the pinion gear. They make this move with a new carrier. They can make part of the move by simply making the ring gear itself thicker from the back surface to the tip of the teeth (the teeth themselves remain the same depth, but the material behind the teeth gets thicker). They can only make so much of a difference using this method, and they eventually just make the carrier a different size.

You need the new carrier. Given the fact that the ring gear may still have

41 teeth on it, I don't know if you can keep this part and only replace th epinion, but my guess is that you can not.

It seems to me that the pitch of the teeth will be different, at the very least. It also occurs to me that the amount that the carrier re-centers the ring gear is not the same amount that the ring gear is thick ...