Rebuilding rear axle DIY?

[Dlefler]

No doubt they won't move the pinion out. I'm guessing the yoke has been changed at some point with the wrong one to account for the gap. Either way the yoke butts up against the outer bearing which isn't a press fit onto the pinion. If the inner bearing wore that much (3/16?) The OP would have been up against the crush collar and the pinion would still have a ton of slop in it and I'm sure he would have noticed that. At that point the back of the pinion would be rubbing on race/housing. That would be a hard noise to ignore.

Also If the pinion moved out 3/16", the gears will be knife edged and junk anyway.

Thats why I'd inspect the diff before loading the parts cannon. I've been setting diffs up for years, I've never seen a pinion launch itself out without catastrophic failure to go along with it..

You are thinking that somebody changed out the yoke? That very well could be as everything on this truck has changed and hacked. Is it safe to drive it like this? I don't hear noise or vibration but then again this truck is super loud.

 

[TotalyHucked]

If you're very mechanically inclined, you can do it. If not, it's probably best left to pros. I've been wrenching my whole life and just did my first axle earlier this year, took me 2.5 months to get it right and 2 sets of gears (granted, life got in the way. It was probably a solid 5 weeks of working on it after work and weekends though). My best advice if you're gonna tackle it, buy quality parts. Granted if you're just doing bearings and seals, that's a whole lot easier than doing a gear change like I did. Go slowly on disassembly, make notes of everything, keep track of where your shims were and it *should* go back together pretty easily. You still need to run a pattern though to make sure it was right before it started having issues, you may have to adjust some shims. Get 2 sets of bearings and make a set of "setup" bearings for this. There's plenty of YouTube videos for doing these 10-bolts

 

[Dlefler]

If you're very mechanically inclined, you can do it. If not, it's probably best left to pros. I've been wrenching my whole life and just did my first axle earlier this year, took me 2.5 months to get it right and 2 sets of gears (granted, life got in the way. It was probably a solid 5 weeks of working on it after work and weekends though). My best advice if you're gonna tackle it, buy quality parts. Granted if you're just doing bearings and seals, that's a whole lot easier than doing a gear change like I did. Go slowly on disassembly, make notes of everything, keep track of where your shims were and it *should* go back together pretty easily. You still need to run a pattern though to make sure it was right before it started having issues, you may have to adjust some shims. Get 2 sets of bearings and make a set of "setup" bearings for this. There's plenty of YouTube videos for doing these 10-bolts

Thank you

 

[WRW86]

I haven't tackled my diffs just yet, but seems like I have watched a 1000 videos and read many articles on the topic in preparation.

Setup bearings and crush sleeve eliminator, mentioned previously, is great advice. One thing that stuck with me, in the videos, is paying attention to your pinion depth by taking initial measurements. A couple of seasoned mechanics showed how to do some measurements with a straight edge and caliper to know where you are relative to the centerline of the carrier. That way you can get extremely close the first time by measuring your existing shims, pinion, bearings or whatever, to start with. It was painful to watch some videos where the guy did so many trial and error fits, he lost track of where he was.

 

[BigT]

I just swapped my 14 bolt, but I cheated. I found another good complete rear diff with the gears I wanted, and just put new seals and outer axle bearings in it, then swapped the whole dang thing. No gear setup needed.

 

[Ricko1966]

Make yourself a simple go/ nogo gauge. Take a piece of angle iron about a foot long,drill a hole in the center. While the diff carrier is out mark and drill 2 more holes so you can bolt the angle with one carrier bolt on each side, with the center hole centered over the pinion. Put a piece of all thread through the center hole until it touches the pinion,lock it in place with 2 jam nuts. Now back the all thread out .050 measure it with feeler gauges,lock it again. This is your jig remove it and set it aside. Now when you set your pinion put your jig back on,measure your clearance again,check it with feeler gauges. This will tell you if your shim is right,or how far it's off. Put original shim on just one side of the carrier, force the carrier up against it with a pry bar,rock the diff see your backlash,shoot for middle of tolerance . Shim the prybar side tight. Now your ready to run a pattern. This really isn't hard.