A super neat Tip by Sweet.
My experience: (I guess that's insight)........More than a day, more than a weekend. A lot of work. If you get it wrong, bad news.
I did a 1960 GMC Dana 44. I would have never purchased the necessary hydraulic press (I don't like hammering stuff on, no control), a 250 Ft Lb torque wrench, an in-lb torque wrench, built a pinion yoke holder, chiseled off the wheel bearings, purchased wheel bearings, wheel bearing seals, pinion seal, gasket, spider gears, pinion gear, ring gear, two sets of carrier bearings, two pinion bearings (one for set up, one for final), dial indicator, indicator holder, marking grease, back and forth balancing end play, backlash, pinion torque and contact pattern; and done all the lifting and grunting by myself if I did not have a 4X4 that needed a matching 3.92 Dana 44 rear diff. THAT I COULD NOT FIND FOR A GMC after 6 months of looking all over the USA and then got local rebuild quotes of $950 from folks I wouldn't trust.
The money I spent was less, I got more parts, and kept all the tools. It was a great learning experience that I now have but don't have anymore desire to do it than I did before. I've probably been lucky with the donor diffs I've used.
Up until then I have always found a complete donor rear end for $150-$250 with the ratio I wanted and Posi if I wanted that.
All I can say is Sweet makes it look semi easy, I did not find that. I believe he did find it "easy", with help and his experience. I did not study his TIP carefully and maybe the dropout diffs are easier. I am very mechanically inclined and I don't recommend doing it. I commend his good work and very nice truck.
I recommend switch to open drive shaft and getting (up to) a 3.73 that fits the width. Should be plenty out there. If someone is parting a truck that you can try out, all the better. If not, always open it up and look inside. To read the ratio stamped on ring gear and check all the teeth of all the gears. You still will want to double check wheel bearings.
Wendell, you're a planner aheader for sure. I would be just wanting to crawl around it and clean it up and such. Not thinking of diff swap at this point. I'm slow I guess. Anyway I know my thoughts are 180 from Sweet. But that's what you want. Yin and Yang.
