Just bought a complete 3rd member and it cam with the wrong pinion yoke. It has a crush sleave and I was wondering if I replaced the yoke with the one that fits and retorq it to spec will it be OK?

 

I'm pretty sure that you are supposed to replace the crush sleeve when you loosen the pinion nut. The Dana rear ends don't have cruch sleeves but use shims instead so you can remove the pinion and install another one without having to do anything else.

 

The pinion nut can not just be torqued down. You need to set about 10 to 12inchLBS of drag on used bearings and you get this by tightening down the pinion nut. Just remove the pinion flange from the third member and then just spin the pinion until you feel you have the proper preload on the bearings and your done.

 

I found that I can buy a U-Joint that matches the short wide yoke and my standard ford driveline. Turns out that this is a set up for imca racers who run a ford 9" and a GM driveline. The Driveline side of the U-Joint is the same as my ford drive-line so all is well. I'm not going to touch my third member, since its been done by an expert.

P.S. I orderd the wrong yoke.