What are you guys paying to have your 8.8 rear ends rebuilt?

 

If you are careful and you use Ford gears, and of course, have some decent tools like floor jacks and impacts. You can actually do it your self. Now I'm sure someone's going to jump on here about that being impossible but whatever, if I could build a 9 inch in my back yard at 17 years old, for my 57 Chevy, anyone can do it. The key is to use Ford gears, it takes a bunch of the guesswork out of it.

 

dont forget the 0.30 pinion shim.........

 

You mean this one.....
Pinion gear mock-up:

Remove the bearing from the old pinion using a press and bearing separator, as illustrated above. Remove the shim from the pinion; measure and record the thickness. The nominal shim thickness used on an FMS gearset is .030", but can vary +/- .002". If you are installing FMS gears, look closely at the new pinion; it may be marked with a +2, +1, 0, -1, -2. If so, that "number" is added to .030" (e.g +2 would indicate the use of a .032" thick shim; likewise, the -2 would require .028") to obtain the proper shim thickness for that gearset. Regardless of the marking on pinion (which is an expeditious method of getting close to correct pinion depth), the final result should always be checked with proper tooling and marking compound.


http://www.corral.net/tech/drivetrain/gears.html