It's repair time and I'm having a bit of trouble finding a rear 3rd member.  Anyone have one laying around?

Short of that...

My parts guy says I can use a front 3rd member in the rear with only the swap of a couple parts (where the axle gear attaches).  That they are identical except for that.  My mechanic says this is extremely time consuming/expensive and requires a lot of technical skill or something; basically, he won't do it. 

Which guy is right? 

(and if I can swap the third front thrid member for the rear, how would one go about doing that?

Thanks, ~Crosby

what 'ya workin on?

Suzuki?
Sammy/kick?
year?
gears?
color?
exhaust diameter?
headlight wattage?

some info would be handy.

If you are working on a Samurai the front will work
in the rear except you need to change out the side
gears, which is the technical part, but it's not that
hard to do so your mechanic is just not interested
in doing the work

Wild

the longest part is getting the 3rds out  if you go though the trouble its time for a locker
you can do it in a half a day  if you are working on a samurai    trackick you cant swap front to rear there diffrent sizes



INFO HELPS TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE WORKING ON

If you are working on a Samurai the front will work
in the rear except you need to change out the side
gears, which is the technical part, but it's not that
hard to do so your mechanic is just not interested
in doing the work

Wild

Exactly.  To swap the sidegears in samurai thirds is very easy and not time consuming at all.  Either you mechanic just doesn't want to do the work, or he is clueless.  To swap the sidegears, you just have to mark the location of the carrier bearing adjusters, remove them, remove the carrier, remove the ring gear, remove the endcap from the carrier, pull the sidegears and spider gears out of the carrier, put the new sidegears in, reassemble everything and torque all bolts back to spec and reinstall the third.  Less than a days work, easily.

With the 3rd out, you should be able to do this in 2 hours, but check
the backlash, don't rely on the marking method to be correct, should
be around .008" use a dial indicator

Wild