Huck's daily - 2005 Z71 crewcab

[Chevrolado]

Nice work! Gettin excited to be driving it again yet??

 

[89Suburban]

Good job, thanks for sharing!

 

[TotalyHucked]

Nice work! Gettin excited to be driving it again yet??

Chomping at the bit!

 

[TotalyHucked]

Got on the front diff after work today. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures a lot of the time. I managed to get the cir clip off the pass side axle and get it out of the extension housing so I could replace that axle seal.

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Got the new ring gear transferred onto the original carrier

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Threw the pinion in with the setup bearings (they’re the same as the rear axle). Then pressed on the carrier bearings, put the side adjusters in and carrier races in. Dropped the carrier in.

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Then put the case halves back together so I could get a backlash measurement

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[TotalyHucked]

Got creative with the setup for measuring lol

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That’s a HUGE Chrysler battery out of the boss’ 2021 Durango lol

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Had to take it back apart a couple times. It’s such a ratio change, leaving the side adjusters where they were at disassembly wasn’t even close to right. So I ended up just backing the drivers side all the way out to get the ring gear close to the pinion and then sneak back up on it. With the adjuster from the outside.

First measurement got me at .055-.058-ish. This is a very difficult thing to measure/feel so I was working with ranges. Also had to keep in mind I had to divide by 2, so that put me at .0275-.029.

Adjusted the side adjusters some more and got down to .041-.043. Kept sneaking up on it, basically a tooth at a time on the adjusters

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Finally, got it to .017-.019. Spec is .006-.010. So that puts me right in the meat of the range, .0085-.0095. Score!

All the maths again

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[TotalyHucked]

So then I threw some paint on and checked the pattern. Unless Spencer or someone sees anything I missed, I’d say that’s good enough for the girls we date. Especially for the front axle that only sees occasional use

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[89Suburban]

Good stuff Zach! You know your stuff! This guy has a good tear down video for this axle if anybody wants to watch.

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[legopnuematic]

Looks decent from over here. I don’t envy you having to play with that clamshell differential contraption

 

[TotalyHucked]

I was hoping I might be able to completely finish up the front diff and have it ready to go back in the truck last night, but of course that didn't happen. Lost 45min brainstorming with a buddy on the phone about fuel systems for 2 trucks he's building. And I decided to use the heat the bearing/freeze the pinion trick but didn't think about it early enough in the night so I lost about 1.5hrs on that waiting for it to heat up and then cool back down (I ate dinner while I waited) instead of being able to multitask.

But I did make some progress. Got the the case split and pulled the carrier back out, cleaned the marking compound off the gears, replaced the ring gear bolts with the new ones (had a brain fart and had reused the old ones, thankfully I had not locktited them), locktited and torqued them down. Got the inner pinion bearing on (plopped right on, heated to ~250 for 30min with the pinion in the freezer for that 30min), threw the crush sleeve and new outer pinion bearing on. Pinion seal and yoke on and started tightening it down.

I learned that the front diff is a little different than the rear in that you start getting into the crush sleeve before the for and aft movement in the pinion is taken up, like quite a bit before. So that was frustrating. Set the case half on some cardboard on the floor with that big battery on top and my deadblow underneath for stability. Started out with my 1/2" breaker bar, ended up spreading the ears on that once I started to get into the crush sleeve. I grabbed the impact out of frustration and was sitting there thinking about it when I remembered the boss has a 3/4" kit, I grabbed that breaker bar and 32mm socket and a jack handle for a cheater pipe. That worked like a charm, guess I'm picking up a few 3/4" tools now.

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FINALLY! Got to where I need to be. I literally laid on the floor for a few minutes after that, that's a workout lol

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It took nearly 1.5hrs sneaking up on it to finally get the rotational torque spec. I was just turning it 1/4-3/8" each time and then recheck. Landed at 18in/lbs, spec is 14-19. Perfect! Double checked on the table with an extra hammer supporting the other ear.

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This is what I think of doing crush sleeves on an IFS. The rear is much easier

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[TotalyHucked]

Well...I have bad news. Worked my ass off getting the front diff back together and in the truck, going over everything a second and third time before taking the truck out on it's maiden voyage around the lot at work. And it was a fail Got noise coming from both axles.

The rear isn't so bad, it's a very mild noise above 20-25mph. It's a rotational sound, like I can hear each tooth on the pinion meshing with the ring gear. The front is fine in 4lo going slow, but put it in 4hi and above 10-15mph it gets a horrible bearing roar. Only in 4hi at speed, can't hear anything in 2wd from the front.

Bad part is, I'm not really educated enough to know where to go from here. I didn't even put half a mile on everything, just back and forth a couple times in our back lot and one lap around the building (there's gravel on one end, so I put it in 4wd to make sure nothing was binding before I tried 4wd in a straight line in the parking lot). Checked both axles with a temp gun when I was done, they only got to 60*, so hopefully things can just be adjusted without replacing anything but maybe the crush sleeves.

I'm wondering on the front if I have it too tight, with everything loaded in the carrier, my rotational torque/drag was like 24-26in lbs. It was in the .008 range with just the pinion. That might explain the bearing roar.

The rear, I guess my pinion depth is a little wrong. Either way, I'm parking it again until I can read up/get some advice from more experienced people. I'm so defeated right now, very tempted to just get it towed to a local shop in town and let them go back through everything.

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[bucket]

Well that's a bummer. I'd say give it a few days and then reassess the situation.

 

[TotalyHucked]

Yeah, that’s the plan, at least right now. I ordered a book on setting up 10 and 12 bolts that should be here tomorrow, gonna read that and see if it’s got any “if you end up with this noise, check this” tips and tricks