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Kind of a rainy day, but we gotta keep this project moving. With all the suspension brackets removed from the front, I lowered it and raised the rear. Just about ready to drag the rearend out of the donor!
Sterling 10.5" rearend cleaned and tore down. Enough for today.
It'll get new 4.30 gears to match the front along with a Detroit Truetrac. Hubs on the table will get new bearings and seals.
Time for the B-code Mod! There seems to be a number of variations on this theme, so I figured what da heck, I'll add another.
I started by cutting the bolt holding the old X spring pack together. I also made a yellow tick mark on the bottom slapper or anti-wrap leaf.
Then I cut the slapper leaf as show below.
Next I take the nut off the spring bolt on the new B-codes. BTW, you can buy B-codes with or without the upper overload leaf and 1" spacer. The O/L leaf and spacer will be discarded, but the spring pack bolt will be long enough to reuse. If you get B-codes w/o the O/L leaf and spacer, you'll need a longer spring pack bolt.
So I removed the top O/L and spacer then add the bottom two leaves from the X along with the thicker spring spacers. Finally, my additional mod was to add the cutoff slapper leaf to the bottom of the spring pack.
I know a lot of folks use the 3.5" F350 blocks which results in an inch or so of rake. I think this slapper spacer combined with the OEM X blocks will result in about 1/2" of rake. We'll see!
So we turn our attention to the 10.5" rearend. I had been waiting on a few extra parts that didn't come in the "master rebuild kit" - I ordered an extra inner pinion bearing to use as a check bearing; I ordered a new outer pinion slinger cuz the old one was buggered-up and they don't give you a new one in the kit; and I always order an extra crush sleeve - just in case.
I didn't show any details when doing the front axle, so I'll share here with the rear axle.
First up is making a pinion check bearing. Pinion depth is adjusted with shims between the pinion gear and the inner pinion bearing. The inner pinion bearing is pressed onto the pinion shaft - this is decidedly inconvenient when you have to add/remove shims. The solution is to buy an extra bearing, gently clamp it in a vice and using a drum sander on a drill, sand the inner bore until it just slides onto the pinion shaft. Here's a pic of the shims and the sanded check bearing slid onto the pinion shaft - for clarity, I didn't slide it all the way on..
If we were just changing bearings, we could probably just re-install the shims that were on the old shaft and the pinion depth would be close, but when we replace the ring and pinion, there is always some adjusting to do. The old pinion had a 0.027" shim - its a good place to start with the new pinion (notice in the pic I labelled it EX .027 - I bent it getting it off the old pinion shaft so I'm not going to reuse it - but I needed to know how thick it was). I don't have a 0.027, but I have a 0.15 & a 0.012 equalling 0.027. So I put those two shims on, slide the check bearing on and drop it into the case.
I've already pressed new bearing races into the rearend housing.
Next you slide the crush sleeve, outer pinion bearing and pinion flange onto the pinion shaft and tighten the pinion nut slightly - until you have just a little bit of preload on the bearings. I use the old pinion nut because we are going to be removing it several times. For final assembly, we'll use the new pinion nut.
We have a problem Houston! With one hand in the case and the other trying to get the other parts slide onto the shaft, I'm having trouble getting the bearing on. WTF!
This ain't right! On the left - the new bearing on the new pinion. On the right - the old bearing on the old pinion.
Yeah, its supposed to slide onto the bearing journal (the shiny part of the shaft). Maybe its the wrong bearing? Nope the engraved numbers match. Here on the left - the old bearing on the new pinion. On the right - the new bearing on the old pinion.
I measure the shaft and the new pinion is a half-a-thousandths too big (0.0005)! Grrrrrr! Not the end of the world, but definitely a PITA.
Stay tuned - more to come. The solution will involve the lathe.
Holy crap! Did CR fall off the end of the earth?! Nah - just life getting in the way of fun. Sorry I've been away, but I'm back at it again!!
Sooooo - where did we leave off? Oh yeah, I had just finished adjusting the pinion height, backlash and tooth pattern. Let's backup a bit. I always like to measure and document stuff as I disassemble. Here are the existing numbers on the rearend as it sat with 200k miles on it.
The pinion had 2inlbs of preload and the ring gear had 0.011" of backlash. Not bad at all for 200k miles. The existing Pinion shim was 0.027" - we used that as a starting point with the new pinion.
Here are the iterations of my setup - in my chicken scratch. Haha. Notice at the top in red are the specs we are shooting for. BackLash: 0.006 - 0.010" and Pinion Preload: 20-35inlbs
I have 4 columns of data:
PIN = Pinion Shim Thickness
RG = Ring gear side carrier bearing shim thickness
NOSE = Nose side carrier bearing shim thickness
BL = Measured backlash
Basically, I keep playing with the shims until I get the best pattern I can while at the same time getting as close as possible to 0.006" BL. I like to setup new gear sets close to 0.006 because the BL will increase as the bearings and gears wear in.
Once we are happy with the setup, we press the new bearing onto the pinion shaft with the correct shim. Install the pinion seal and using a new nut and crush sleeve, tighten until we have 20-35inlbs of preload.
It can take upwards of 600ftlbs to crush the sleeve.
We turn the nut a bit and check the preload, then do it again. You have to sneak up on it. If you go too far, you have to start over with a new crush sleeve and nut.
Measure the rotational drag (as it is moving) - 35inlbs.
The RG and LSD cleaned up and installed for the final time. Tip - I struggled with the standard shims that came in the gear set "MasterKit". I ended up buying a set of Yukon Interlocking Super Shims. Genius design! Holds all the shims together and prevents damage to the fragile thin shims. WAY easier!
OK - I promise another update in less than 4 months. Hahah!
Rebuilt the hubs with new bearings and seals. Assembled the hubs, axles and brake rotors. Installed the shock brackets and brake lines. And that diff cover HAS to be worth at least 20hp!! Hahaha
Following along....nice axle work! I need to add that ability to my skills. Any good recommendations for gaining some knowledge on this?
Thanks! My recommendation is to find someone that knows what they are doing and ask if you can help and learn. Most that have the skills are willing to teach an enthusiastic learner - finding that person may be the hard part. I grew up in my Dad's shop and learned a lot. Took it for granted at the time - thinking everyone's Dad taught them this stuff.
Secondly, I always say, you have to be somewhat fearless. Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.
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