Congrats on doing it yourself, there were a couple times where I thought you were gonna give up.

 

me too. Don't get me wrong. It was a fun project and learned a lot. But there were times I was second guessing myself.

 

Well done! let us know how it all turns out for longevity.
What are the biggest tips you can give? What specialty tools do you need?

 

I think I have a problem with one of the pinion bearings. It makes a slight whining sound at around 40 MPH cruising. Acceleration and coasting, no noise. I'm hoping that somehow, it's that easy (considering). My friend left for Atlanta (he goes back and forth) so don't know when he might be back. We had a great time with the crush sleeve and thinking somehow, the outer bearing might have been damaged by removing the pinion after it was installed as we accidentally installed the wrong (old) crush sleeve.

Freestyle, for certain you need the backlash adjustment tool, yoke holder and a very strong breaker bar with a lot of leverage to wrench on the pinion nut with new crush sleeve. I really wish we had the thing on a lift or rear axle removed for more leverage. It got kind of hairy there for a bit as the truck was moving around - nobody was under the truck at the time. We tried my impact gun but I seriously think that the job needs something a little bigger than a 1/2" like a 3/4" heavy duty sucker. I don't have a cheapie one either, but I don't think the Thunder Gun wasn't designed to do that kind of work to be honest. 400 ft/lbs. is a LOT to get to.

Machinist's dial indicator with magnet base to measure backlash and a bearing race and seal installer. Oh, pinion depth tool is a nice thing to have but we used the trial and error method with a drilled out bearing that slipped on and off of the pinion gear. I know I'm forgetting something else but that's all I can think of for now. ... Oh, yeah, I also used a digital caliper to measure shim thickness as the kit I had didn't have them marked. That little caliper I used a lot in this job. And a press. I was fortunate and got a 12 ton press that was missing the arbor plates for $50 at Harbor Freight. That's something a shop can do, too.

So, anyway, I'm ordering new bearings for the pinion gear and races and will probably have a shop do it. I've spoken with them a few times and their gear guy is pretty knowledgeable. Couple hundred bucks worth of work and I should be good to go. I've spent way too much time on this thing already .. hehe. Plus, I probably wouldn't trust myself doing it anyway.

 

Well that sucks, so it's not real loud and only whines under light load/cruising? Mine pretty much does the same thing, has been that way for a while. After the last install it didn't make any noise really, a little pulsing woo woo at speed which went away, then it eventually started to whine a little under light load. I was told if the bearing was severely damaged on the pinion you could feel it when you disconnected the driveshaft and spun the pinion by hand it would feel rough. Mines been whining a little under light load for like 12k miles and I had the gear oil analyzed and it came back w/ no issues. If you can live w/ the noise and you check the bearing and it feels smooth let it go, if it drives you crazy then drop the cash to make it quiet. You got some ***** and patience for making it through the teardown and install. Good luck w/ getting it fixed.

 

Thanks, Chambers. For certain, this project definitely humbled me. You know what it's like when you finish a project like this and you just keep going over everything you did in your head to make sure you've done everything right? To be honest, it rides very smooth. The pinion rotates pretty smooth and we definitely put the right amount of preload on it with the new bearings but like I said, the only thing I can think of - that I'm not quite 100% on, is the fact that we had to remove the pinion to swap out the crush sleeve. Stupid mistake, I know. That wasn't the problem more than it was pretty hard to get out of there and with all of the banging going on .. well, can only imagine slight damage to the bearings and/or races there, maybe. I have a slight whine at 20-30 MPH as well. And a little louder, lower pitched whine at about 45. But the "slack" I had when I'd put it in drive after backing up out of the drive way ... that's completely gone. The backlash was set on the tight side to accommodate break in I suppose (closer to 0.005" versus 0.008") and I'm babying it.

I most certainly feel confident I can do the swapout, replace the bearings, crush sleeve, races, but because it's the first time I've done this, I need longevity out of it for certain - I think I'd feel better to just have a professional shop do the pinion bearing swap and check the shims and gear pattern. I take from this a lot of things that was well worth it IMO. It's probably just fine and would last YEARS, but can't put a price on peace of mind.

 

Yea, I understand wanting to make sure it's right. Even a tiny bit of whine can really start to annoy you over time. Now you'll know if they try to feed you any BS when they're working on you diff. too, let us know how it turns out.

 

Hey chambers, thought I'd give you an update - I had the shop replace the bearings, races and crush sleeve on the pinion. They did find an issue with one of the backlash adjusters being a tad on the tight side, but all is well now. Same noise at 40+ MPH when cruising/coasting, kind of like the noise when you down shift a manual transmission but lower pitched.. 2 mechanics, myself and friend of mine have all been in this thing and beginning to think it's normal. No vibrations, no woo woo noise, just that one noise. I hear of people, including yourself, that's had noise and no issues. I'm beginning to think the same with mine. 4.56 is a pretty high ratio.

 

Cool, glad you got it buttoned up. The noise I have is really just kind of an annoyance more than anything, like exhaust drone on a long trip can start to get to you. You'll probably get used to it, like I have to mine. Unfortunately re-gearing isn't an exact science and can sometimes give you more noise than the OEM setup.

 

I left the truck there overnight since I didn't have a way to take it home, even though it's still buttoned up, the next day they called and told me they felt that there *may* be something going on with one of the side bearings on the diff. If I were to take a gander at it, I would think that maybe they didn't reseat the bearings after each backlash adjustment - possibly causing a "not so flush" seat of the bearing/races. That could throw off backlash and cause gear noise I'd say. I told them do what they felt was right and they can have it for a few more days if need be. I'm happy with the work so far, they fixed my boogered up threads on the pinion, got the new races in, new bearings, pinion feels smoooooooth. has to be that finnacky backlash adjustment people hold dear to their hearts on these chrysler rear axles. :P