Well, I did it now, took rear cover of my diff tonight. Couldn't see anything scary, I know my pinion bearings are bad, can get side play at flange of pinion shaft. I'm going to change all bearings, how do I determine if ring and pinion need replacing? the ring gear teeth look ok , but haven't taken apart yet.
8.8 3.73 LS
thanks.

 

Ummmmm........I just stumbled on this thread, so pardon my sarcasm and usual smart azz ideas!!! But, if a person is qualified to do differential work, said person is qualified to make his/her own judgement call as to whether or not the ring and pinion need replacing......and if said person can not make that judgement call, said person had probably leave the differential work to someone that is qualified to make that decision!!!!
Good luck!!!!

 

do you know how to set bearing crush, backlash, bearing preload, gear pattern ?... That being said, if the teeth do not have spall marks or pits, they should be fine.

 

I got carrier and pinion out, the carrier pretty much fell out when I took the caps off, thats way too loose. I think my ring and pinion look ok, I've got clear instrution on the pinion crush, the only thing that sounds tricky is the carrier preload.

 

there are a variety of youtube videos that show how to do this... don't matter WHO built the axle, they are all similar. You have a CRUSH sleeve for the pinion .. pay attention to how it is installed. Just replacing bearings, you should be able to use the present shims for the original gears.

 

Hello again, I got everything out, the pinion bearings were loose, the carrier also pretty much fell out. I want to reuse the gears, I think they look good, will try to post pics. One question on the pinion is that the face or top of gear teeth taper in thickness from front to back, is this what it's supposed to look like? And also can I just use same shim between pinion and bearing, assuming depth was set right at factory?
The rear end was humming and whining alot, I'm assuming loose/bad bearings messed backlash all up.
The only wear I can see on ring is right at the very inside toe.
Guess I'm freaking out a little about pinion depth.

 

when I change bearings and leave the gears in, I assume the original bearings and new bearings are within .001 inch of "THE SAME"... so I do the same shim packs... check side clearance on the bevel gear shaft. Get the right crunch on the pinion spacer... If the backlash is CLOSE to acceptable, I go with it.. gear pattern is not as important and should be OK if everything else was good.

 

Gears look fine by me, I've certainly reused worse with no issue. When I rebuild a diff, even if all I reuse from the original is the housing I always set it up first with the shims it came with. Nine times out of 10 I can get a good pattern out of it and it goes down the road fine. Axle setup for an everyday street vehicle is not nearly as precision as some guys like to make it out to be, the specs are a pretty wide tolerance on an 8.8.