looking on car-part.com rear ends out of explorers have either v6 gear ratios or v8 ratios.  looking everywhere i cant find any difference between the two axles.  does anyone know of any differences?

its probably the same thing just the v6 prolly has a 3.73 or so and the v8 prolly has a lower 3.08 or somthin.

yea they all run the same 31 spline but the gears are different.

wrong and wrong...

ok... V6 8.8 on explore will have a different ratio that a V8 , the spline count MIGHT be different between the two.. an 8.8 out of an explore will have disc breaks on MOST of them
i have also seen 28 spline and 31 spline explore axles. all with 3.08 3.73 and 4.10 ratios..

Wrong

elaborate please...  im off to work, so ill have fun reading online. i might head over to TRS also and see what they have to say

http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/Axles.html

http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/Explorer8_8.html

have fun reading...   

Easy skippy I was just messing with you ha ha ha

ok my bad. just read it rangers and cars with 8.8s run 28 spline and full size (exploders, f150's etc) run 31spline

i thought he was askin the difference between v6 and v8 explorer rear ends. Not the difference between v6 and v8 8.8's in general

i have a 7.5 with 3.73s if any of u guys are interested...

i have a28spline 8.8 in my ranger...newer explorers have disks.. older ones are drum

As already said above, it's probably the gearing that is gonna be different between a v6 and v8 rearend. If you can get the code from the axle tag on the rearend....this will give you the gearing and spline count of the axles:

http://fordification.com/rearends-ford01.htm

Both are 8.8 31 spline

im just oing to pick one up and compare... they are super cheap, 150 for one with 83,000 on it. i have a V8 8.8 rebuilt waitin to go into my 6.0l s10.  my buddy was saying that maybe the axles get milled down in the middle to a smaller diameter for the V6 axles because some D44s he deals with do the same... all the bearings and universals are all the same jus the axles are milled in the middle.

Axles are identical... the only inkling of difference is in the axle tube thickness.  Ive been reading that there are two different thicknesses of .188" and .250".   There is no concrete evidence I can find about V6s being any thinner or thicker then V8 axle tubes.  Common sense tells us that with a bigger motor you are capable of tower a larger load thus the need for a more sturdy axle tube??  I am getting my V6 axle cut down for a project soon and i will have to measure the thickness when i do so and cannibalize my pitted and rusted V8 axle as well to compare.