i have an 87 ranger std cab with a 2.9. the bolt hole are approx. 2 5/8 inches apart on the flange where the driveshaft bolts to the pinion. my friend is giving me an axle assembly out of a 94 std cab ranger with a 4 banger and a 7.5 rearend. the holes on his flange are 3" apart. i want to know can i just put his flange on my u-joint?

Why exactly are you swapping? Those two rear ends are the same.

I beleive he's talking about the mounting flange between the u-joints & the actual rear. Yes, the parts are interchangable. Just remove your mounting flange & mount it to the the donor rear. It should be held in place by one big ass nut. I had to do the same thing when I swapped rears. Hope this helps.

sorry about the confusion. the driveshaft from my 87 wont bolt up to the 94's pinion flange. i was going to do it the hard way. he has 4.56 gears and a l/s in his axle. i'm going to just swap axles and not have to fool with taking the gears and l/s out. i hate the smell of 80w oil. did i mention i'm getting 2 33x12.50 thornbirds FREE!

the problem is that the pinion flange (what the driveshaft bolts to on the axle) for all 1994 (pretty sure it was 94) models are the larger size. Before the change there was the smaller 7.5" pinion flange size and then the larger size for the 8.8. I am not sure if the u-joints are the same on the 2 though, so I'm not sure if you can just swap the endsof the drive shafts. I do know that the driveshafts should just swap right in though. Plus if you go to the driveshaft for the bigger flange you will get the bigger (stringer) u-joints. I found this out when I put the 8.8 out of a 96 in my 89. I had to use the driveshaft of a 94 or newer. Anyway there is infor about it at therangerstation.com Steve