i did alot of searching and couldnt find anything to answer my question. i recently purchased a hd d44 for the outters and a sterling 10.25 for my truck and a dana 60 rear for my jeep and i am ready to buy gears for the 10.25 and have noticed that there was a change in 93 which allows it to accept a lower gear (5.13) than the early models only accepting a 4.56, my question is how to tell weather or not i screwed up and got an early model or did good and got a late model. i already have 5.13's in the front of my truck and wanted to stay that way so i dont wanna buy the gear set and end up with my axle being a early model and then having to use my dana 60 in the truck and having to buy another gear set. did the hd dana 44 front only come in certain year f-250s? can i track it down that way by finding out the years that axle was offered until they switched to the dana 50? the hd d44 and sterling came out of the same truck but the year was unknown. o yeah my pinion seal is leaking like its cool so maybe that is a sign that it is a early model as well. the rear tag is as follows

V126A -
3.55 1025 E17

According to the june '05 four wheeler article, the first gen sterlings will do 3.08-7.17, so no worries there. It says the second gen is almost an exact copy of the first gen, with the exception of the pinion having a larger splined area. First gens are more prone to yoke movement, causing bearing wear, failure etc etc. Second gen gears are supposedly direct fit. Four wheelers tech sucks, but hey, info is info.