ok so i have a 2000 chevy silverado 2wd. when i bought it had a fabtech 7 in lift with 315 75 r16's. i blew the rear end today. me and my dad pulled the diff cover off and he said its not worth fixing and we should just get one from a junkyard. i dont know much about lifts and stuff but the diff cover has been off before. would there be different gears in there because of the lift? and is there any difference between a 4x4 rear end and 2x4 rear end?

 

well damn that sucks and if the lift was done right and the person knew what they were doing the gearing would be different as the tire size is different they maybe stock gears thats why they blew
personaly i would remove the lift as there is realy no purpose on a 2wd truck
but wth its your truck
also you need to know what type of diff it is if its 10 bolt with 8-1/2" ring gear
14 bolt 9-1/2" ring gear
or 14 bolt with 10-1/2" ring gear
as they very in size also you wouldnt need a new axle if the axle shafts and spline are good and not broke twisted warped or the splines are shiney if they are shiney and look like a stripped bolt then replace the whole rear axle
the refereance on the striped bolt is the best way i can describe
another reason the rear end blew is the differential fluid was probably low
maybe even posibaly the parking brake was stuck on the whole time while driveing
but you need to first identify the size of the ring gear that can be determaind by the number of bolts on the differental
as fro the lift i still to this day dont get why people lift 2wds
as for finding one in a jukyard good luck i rarely see that year of truck in them
also forgot find out if it is posi traction or limited slip or regular one legger
keep us posted

 

the ring and pinon are still intact, as far as i know the spider gears messed up and the whole axle shifted over or something. i could get a pic with the diff cover off tomorrow if need be

 

If you look closely to the outer edge of the ring gear, you will see the size of the ring and pinion engraved on it.

 

You can get a whole rearend out of a salvage yard for around $300. That readend can come out of a 00 on up to an 05 there abouts. For a 2 wheeler it would probably be a 373 or the other common 1, but it is slipping my mind right now. Unless however the person who owned it beofr you had it replaced with a better gear setup to move all that extra weight he had added (lift kit).

 

well keep us updatede on what is going one and did you try to push the axle shafts back in where they should be
also i think i would take the gears out and have them looked at so as to know what size they are because as i said above nad another said they might be different as if the person who put the lift on knew what they were doin they should have changed the gearing as there is a lift and bigger tires
most likely the stock gears are as above said 3.73 gearing
if you could take a picture of the differential so as i can see how many bolts there are
another suggestion call around to a shop that deals with rear ends and or differentials and ask them if you could bring the gearing in to get an idea of what they are

 

its a 10 bolt rear end you can see the blue glue where its been off before

 

the number on the ring gear says 12 41 279 2

 

all you have to do is divide the smaller into the bigger, Example: 41/11=3.727 =3.73 or 41/10=4.10 = 4.10

so seems it's 3.42 u have.

 

from the pictures it seams to me that the gearing is ok as far as the ring gear i would try to replace the spyder gear and see if that gets you anywhere
also the above post is correct