I was thinking about the spacer thing just now while looking at my picture...

"in my mind" - I have no play with the smaller gears now. But....

over time when material wears off I would increase the thickness to push the side gears "out" which would then push the smaller gears "up" to force the play out of them?

i'm going to go put my axles back in, clean things up and put my new diff cover on.


thanks guys.

 

Ideally, you should have very little wear in there. Just keep fluid level where it is supposed to be.

 

Ok, I've tried to search for some info on the spacers for the 2 axle spider gears and cant find much info...


- is there supposed to be any "in and out" play on the axle spider gears (none on passenger side, little on the driver side.)
- If no in and out play is supposed to be there would it hurt to just add one spacer/shim to the driver side and leave the passenger side alone?

- what exactly are the spacers for?
- do they change backlash at all?
- do they change run out (I think that is the words im looking for)? I need to read up on that a little more.
- do I need to check the spider gears backlash or is that just for the ring gear? I was good at .012/.013 thousands on the ring gear


I took everything out including the spacers on each gear and added the next biggest spacer to both side gears and it kind of felt like it was binding, very slightly but still spun freely. the axle shafts were rubbing directly on the cross pin when I added the next size up and spun the spiders by hand.. I did grab the outer axles and checked for in and out play and there was a tiny, tiny bit... so im guessing it wouldn't have done damage to the cross pin.


sorry for all the questions, and maybe some confusion. just want to do things right. im not sure why I have in and out play on the driver side spider gear, but not the passenger side..

 

GM uses the same method to retain the axles in a fair few of their rear ends, I have never seen spacers used in those, and I have always seen a bit of side to side slop. There is probably a 'tolerance' value listed somewhere, but, I haven't seen it. (but, I haven't looked either.) Does the FSM have anything to say about it??

 

i looked thru the FSM a little awhile ago and did not see anything pertaining to the side gears as far as tolerances.. i could have over looked it if there was anything. i'll go take another look

 

Looking at the R&R procedure for axles, none of the pics show spacers, and they don't talk about them in the detailed instructions either...... can you find anything else online that talks about those??

 

no i cant find much info on them. I came across a couple useless threads elsewhere pertaining to the side axle gears and the spacers (thrust washers, shims, whatever they are called). my kit came with 6 total. 3 different thicknesses. im not going to worry about it too much. I just threw the ones back in I first installed that matched up to the originals I pulled out with my old gears.


while being a dumbass I blew a wheel cylinder so add that to the list. replacing both tomorrow. I forgot I had my key on to spin my carrier, went to start the truck to charge battery cause it was a few hours and forgot I had it in natural so the rear started spinning.... no drums on + plus brake pedal..... well, you know what happened. and like a dumbass I couldn't get the rear to stop spinning so what do I do instead of turning the key off??? please, don't ask. I can still hear that split second noise

 

Long day in the trenches? I have done similar things in the past......

I couldn't find squat on them. Not even places that sell them..... No threads about them, nothing. Although, limiting slop on the ends of the axles DOES seem like a fairly good idea.....

 

o yes, very long day.. dealing with the truck, my wife that just had back surgery (disc taken out and fused), my daughter on her 3rd day of school calling wanting us to come get her from school..... its time to take another Xanax (prescribed) and relax.

thanks for helping me look around for info bud, appreciate it. Back at it in the a.m.

 

School starting already????? How old is your daughter?