Huck's daily - 2005 Z71 crewcab

[legopnuematic]

In my opinion the best way is to have the axle on a stand or fixtured on a bench. That way one can rotate the pinion facing down and gravity assists in holding things, then you can drop the carrier in and not drop an AAM 11.5 carrier and ring gear and have it roll down your arms and legs lol. Also by removing the whole rear (or front), good time to change the u bolts if they have been.

This engine stand fixture works ok, have some gripes with it, but works well enough.

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This is what I’d like to build, need to acquire or build a solid table/bench first though. Really nice to establish a solid reference plane to do shock mount/spring perch/knuckle clocking type work to make sure the angles will be correct.

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[TotalyHucked]

That would definitely be nice to have. I pulled the axle out of my C10 to give to the guy that did its setup. When I dropped it off he was like “where’s the truck? I like to do them in the vehicle”.

I’m a workbench kinda guy, if I had a fixture/table, I’d definitely rather do it that way

 

[legopnuematic]

I’m of the same mind, certainly can do it under the vehicle, with or without a lift, but having it out is just my personal preference. Now, doing this kind of work isn’t what keeps the lights on for me, so trying to make time and $$ doing the work, I can see why doing it under the vehicle is attractive for some, or just the way to make the numbers work.

Now, both regears I’ve done have been more inline with a total overhaul, clean and paint the housing, outer axle seals, outer wheel bearings (semi floaters), the gears and limited slip install of course. On the 14b sf all new perches and shock mounts and brake caliper brackets were welded on. A little different than just a limited slip install, or regear.

That, and it takes less space in my shop to have axle on its own, than having the whole vehicle it belongs to, if it isn’t my own.

 

[legopnuematic]

And I have the ability to hit my head on everything it seems, mitigating overhead obstacles is a help too…

 

[TotalyHucked]

Same!

 

[Catbox]

Just for another set of pictures to look at, this is what my rear end guy sent for pictures of my Suburbans new gear set.
All finished and ready to go.
It has been 4 years now and no issues.

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[TotalyHucked]

Thanks! I've learned alot just from looking at other people's pictures. I joined a "Gear Install Technical Group" on FB and between the help I got on my post and reading other's posts about their 10-bolts have helped alot. I also found a bunch of posts from other people having similar struggles with this brand of gears I got (USA Standard). So I bit the bullet after more research and ordered up some Revolution branded gears. The guy that started this business has worked in the gear and axle world for many, many years and worked for some of the best brands. So he had all the contacts and went out on his own sourcing from the best manufacturing plants supposedly. Apparently China and Korea are the only sources for ring and pinions with Korea being MUCH better quality. We'll see but everything I've read online, everybody raves about them, couldn't find a single bad review.

I also decided to step down to a 4.56 ratio instead of sticking with 4.88. The more I thought about it and played with the gear calculators, the less I liked the idea of 4.88s, even with 35s.