Yukon gears 3.73 available, looking into regearing again

[GRN69CHV]

Truck is now 2 years old, 42K on it. Tolerating the 3.08's, has been a lot better to deal with since the retune and deactivating AFM. Had looked really hard at it prior, just did not want the expense to only go to a 3.42, didn't want to go all the way to a 4.10's, JMHO, that's just a little too much gear for a 32-33" tire. All the 3.73 gears for a 9.5" were the old style that required the old style carriers , conversion yoke and cover spacer. New Yukon 3.73 is specifically made for the 9.5 12 bolt. Howver it does need require the higher deck height carrier.

 

What comes next is going to generate some head shaking on the part of a few who log into this post. East Coast Gear Supply is now offering a 9.5" 12 bolt ring gear spacer. I have used ring gear spacers in the past on drag cars (GM 12 bolts) running 5 series gears on a 4 series carrier and don't recall a failure. I'd be a little skeptical if this truck was intended to run 35" or taller tires and destined for abusive off-road. For a street driver (I think the spacer is only about .160-.180" thick), I don't see a problem. From what I can tell, the new bolts supplied with the spacer have a full shoulder that should serve to center the spacer to the carrier and effetively relocate the shear point. Front carrier will have to be swapped also, bare carriers are pretty cheap though, you just swap the spiders and bearing from one to the other.