Hey guys, Ive been having some noises come from my rear end. It's hard to describe the noise but long story short I took it to a reliable mechanic who says the noise is being caused by either a bad pinion bearing, chipped tooth, or both. My question is would it be better to get it all fixed by him or getting a decent rear end from the junkyard? How easy is it to replace the whole rear end myself?

 

Making kind of a vibrating whining noise? If there is no slop in the yoke, then could be a chipped tooth. If the yoke wobbles around the likely pinion bearings.

You can bolt in a rearend in a few hours with some basic hand tools. Worst part is getting the U bolts off(if they are rusty). Cut them and get new ones is the easy route there. Drop it out and put new one in.

Likely cheaper then getting new ring/pinion/bearings installed.

 

I picked one in decent shape for ~$200 recently. Plus you can clean it up (brakes etc) while its on the bench and just drop it in.

And the U bolts/nuts are supposed to be replaced each time you take them off anyway IIRC.

 

Thanks a lot guys. I've never really messed with the rear end stuff so it's still a little new to me. I do like the idea of having it out so that I can clean it really good so that is definitely something I'll do