The man speaks for himself. He is the one who did this.

 

well the 20 turns does sound more accurate than the single turn, i had never heard of doing it that way. all i had ever done was the single turn and it gets you close but your way does sound better thanks for the info.

 

Your welcome.

There is just 2 important things to keep in mind;

1. That what your after is 10 rotations of the ring gear as opossed to 1 in order to get an accurate count.

2. How you get 10 rotations of the ring gear accuratly depends on the differental. If open or a worn out/loose posi(most) blocking one side and turning the other 20 rotations works very well. If posi(or softlock) it's much harder as both wheels need to be given 10 rotations at the same time. If a locker 10 rotaions on one side will turn the other side 10 for you but you should turn it backwords. If spool(lincoln locked) 10 is 10 everywhere no matter what.

There is no reason to ever take it apart to find the ratio unless it is damaged to the point that it can't be done by measuring the effects of the ratio(counting). If you do take it apart for maintance and want to check then counting teeth is still a bad idea, the pinion teeth are too hard to see to count and it's stamped on the ring gear just look at that. Generally what is stamped on the ring gear is tooth counts not the numerical ratio. So you will see something like 13:46 this is a 3.54

 

Alrighty got me a new update here,



I shall be doing front pads here either today or tomorrow. Total came out to just under $18 for semi-metallic pads with a little thing of lube.

Though i do have a question, should i bleed the brakes when i'm done? Since i am only doing the front and not the rear yet do i have to bleed them? We recently did out chevy vans pads and didn't bleed them, we compressed the brake cylinder, put the pads on, and slowly pumped the brakes till they felt ok.

EDIT: also the nice thing about these is when they wear out, all i have to do is bring them back and Autozone will give me brand new ones for free. Lift time warranty

 

Should you yes, do you have to no.

You can push the piston in with like a c-clamp or something without ever opening the bleeder. Then absolutly no reason to bleed them.

You should open the bleeder to push in the piston AND leave it open for a while, while at the same time making sure you keep the master full. This will flush out old fluid, do it until the fluid comes out clean. Then a little bleeding just for good measure, but if you keep fluid always flowing out then no air gets in.

 

Sounds like a good deal, I'd be skeptical about the free repalcement from wear though. Also, I never bleed brakes after just doing pads, since I just use a clamp and push the piston in.

 

I would open the bleeder. get rid of the old fluid..put fresh brake fluid in..get a power flusher and flush the brake lines..

 

Take the brake fluid resevoir cap off, then use the clamp to push the piston in. Bleed the brakes only if the fluid has surpassed its lifetime.

 

Alright, yeah when we did our van, we used a C-clamp to compress the piston. It worked well, the only issue was that compressing it caused fluid to leak out of the master cylinder lid. I might put a bucket or something under mine so it doesn't make a big mess. I don't like brake fluid getting on stuff...

 

Brake fluid will pretty much mess up whatever it gets on. It eats paint and will cause things to rust.

 

Yup, thats why i want to prevent any spilling. I also don't want the pressure from the cylinders being reversed to blow the seal on the lid and wreck havoc on everything... The main reason i asked is because i don't know if the braking system on a Ford from 78 will require more than a Chevy from 94. I think tomorrow i will get it done.

 

The basics are all the same for disc brake and drums.

 

Alrighty 1 project done. Surprisingly it was super easy to do the pads. Loosen 1 bolt, tap out the spring thingy pull the caliper, compress piston while aching the master cyl to make sure it isn't gushing fluid, replace pads and reverse. Our van had 2 long bolts with a hex style head on it so we were stuck with an allen wrench. Here are some images.

Driver side. The hardest part i think was putting the tires back on... They are freaking heavy.


Old pads compared to new ones


As you can see the old pads were pretty messed up. There were some nice grooves in the pads and some big cracks. The discs were thin but ok.


Almost fully compressed, i found out after a little bit of swearing and sweating that i hadn't compressed the piston quite far enough. After i did it went pretty smooth.


New pads in, bolt tightened down, all done for that side.


On the passenger side, pretty much everything was the same, only more broken bolts. To hold tha caliper on there is one bolt holding a piece of metal down that has a spring on it and that spring pushes the caliper up and keeps it in place. The bolt has broken off in one of the threaded holes and i don't have a matching bolt to fit the other hole. It seems to have been this way for a long time and hasen't fallen apart so i didn't worry about it.


for my next magic trick, i will make $100+ disappear out of my bank account to have 5 studs replaced... I broke another stud on the passenger side. When i bought TGM there was one missing already, now i am down to 3. I called a local shop and the guy will charge $90 for labor and the rest is in parts. I know i know, do your own work, but these are studs and it includes taking the whole hub assembly apart... Where as i can fork out a bit of money and get it done quicker and more professional.

 

Taking the hub out is dumb-easy, you have seen my write-up, it's quite easy, taking the studs out and pushing them in just requires some hammer tapping, once you take the hub out. You might spend $10 in the spindle-nut socket, but that's it.

 

You can remove a hub and replace some studs in an hour if you take your time. Too easy.