Same symptoms and all? You just replaced the axle and bearing and everything was good? I'm this deep into it (albeit unnecessarily I see now) so I'm replacing all the bearings.

 

He's a spammer. Ignore him.

 

Appreciate you.

Just an update, changed the bearings and went back with the old shims. Went ahead and set pinion bearing preload to 20 in/lbs. I screwed it up and overtightened it the first time, luckily I bought two extra crush washers lol. Changed the limited slip clutches and that was a total bear to do, wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Got brass flakes all in the carrier with my brass punch, spent a while cleaning them out, ran out of break cleaner and I'm not sure if I got every last bit lol. Took a while to set the backlash but got it to 6 thousanths with everything torqued down, did a pattern test and I feel like it's good enough.



Going to call this one done until my axles come in. Here's to another 300,000 miles after this hopefully

 

I've got over 350K on my 9.25 with open diff. Just changed the fluid on it. Figure if it goes, I'm heading to the junkyard to look for a front hit or something . I've gotten lazy in my old age. 😀

 

To be honest with you mine looked pretty much perfect, this job was pretty unnecessary since the issue was my axles, but I was already this deep into it so I figured I'd give it a glow up. If I just changed the axle this would go on like this for another 300k no problem. My clutches didn't look too bad either to be honest but had a little wear. Overall these diffs are built pretty solid minus that issue with the clutch pack clips, but mine were fine. I have no idea why the axle got ate up the way it did though, it's never been run dry...

 

Update.

Got my new Dana axles in the other day, what was weird installing them was that they were the same length as my old ones, but it was difficult installing the C-clips, which kept hanging up on the side gears. I'm wondering if the new clutches were pushing on the gears a bit which gave less clearance to put the C-clips in? I had to lightly tap them in with my brass punch, but otherwise everything went back together great. Drove 200 miles and the rear end is quiet, and did NOT blow up, which is a huge plus .

I know not many people will look at this forum or my posts, but leaving my experiences here in case someone else might get something from this. Getting the old bearings off I used a cheap bearing splitter off Amazon. I cut off the outside of the bearing and got rid of the rollers and used an impact to tighten the splitter down around the inside race, then used a socket and a flat piece of metal as a spacer to pull off the inside race of the bearing. I absolutely abused this bearing splitter and it definitely took some damage, but greasing the threads it survived. I used a cheap Vevor 6 ton press off amazon to press the new bearings on, the old bearing races and inner bearing races were extremely useful for pressing the new bearings on without damaging them, no heat or freezing required. I just went back with the old shims for the pinion gear, I didn't do the dummy bearing method and install the carrier and check patterns and take it back apart and mess with all of that. It's gone 300,000 miles with those shims and gears, if the gears look good and you're not replacing them, just use the old shims and press a new bearing on and call it a day. Mine patterned fine at the end.

Getting the yoke for the driveshaft on the pinion was a bit weird because the outer bearing didnt go on far enough to start the threads with the pinion nut, so I held the pinion gear in place with my hand and used a hammer to hit the yoke to awkwardly start the bearing on just far enough to get the nut on that I was able to use an impact to tighten it down to get the yoke and bearing pressed on. Getting it off originally I had to leave the nut threaded on flush with the pinion spindle and absolutely wail on it with a hammer. ABSOLUTELY buy extra crush sleeves, they're cheap and it's super easy to overtighten them. My first time hitting it with the impact I got it to 60 in/lbs which was WAY too much bearing preload. The second time I just let the impact hit a few times and checked each time, with some red loctite, eventually it got right to 20 in/lbs. I used a 1/4 inch pound beam torque wrench with a 1/4 to 1/2 adapter with my socket. You absolutely need a good strong 1/2 impact. The pinion nut size is 1 1/4 inch, 6 point. I did this job on the ground with 3 ton stands, if you have a lift or larger jack stands you can probably lift it high enough to brace the yoke with a pipe wrench and use a breaker bar to get your preload, but honestly the impact method worked, I don't know if that's improper, but it worked for me.

Setting backlash was kind of a pain, not many youtube tutorials go into detail about it and those that do weren't 100% right for me, but were enough for me to figure it out. Take your time and get it right, it's 100% worth getting it right. I found a tool on amazon for like 20 bucks to turn the adjusters down the axle tubes. I also used a cheap dial gauge off of amazon, it was a pain to get set up in the right position, and I couldn't zero it out because the bezel was so tight it would move the gauge itself around, but it worked. I'd recommend getting a nicer one, but that cheap one did the job, maybe the harbor freight ones would be better lol.

The limited slip clutches were an absolute nightmare, I had to go to home depot and buy some bolts and washers and use them to compress the clutch discs and the spring washer in order to get the clearance to get the spider gears in, the new ones were THAT tight. I had to play around with the tension with a wrench on them in order to have them tight enough that the spider gears had room to go in, but not too tight the side gears wouldn't spin at all, I took this idea from a youtube video. This took me a while to figure out. Do yourself a favor and go to the store and get the hardware, I fought with it for a while before doing that. I've seen a video on youtube of someone replacing limited slip clutches on a Ford Mustang with the carrier still in the car (chrisfix haha), I don't believe this would be possible on a ram, because on the ford it has a separate center spring clip for preloading the clutches, once you remove that they all move freely. While our rams use that spring washer against the gears themselves for preload. I used a brass punch and a hammer with a lot of force. Maybe I'm missing something and someone has a better idea or method I'd love to hear about it haha.

I'm gonna run it for a little while and then change the fluid again, because I know there's still some brass flakes left behind and maybe some dirt.

Overall the job took a total of 3 days maybe, over the course of a couple weeks. Definitely good to have a backup vehicle while you do a job like this on the side. Ultimately the problem was just my axles and this wasn't totally necessary, but I feel good about getting it all in order. Super happy to have my truck back, and not having to drive my 93 corvette for work anymore .

I hope someone can get something from this. If anyone has anything to add please feel free.

 

Another update, I noticed my rear wheels don't wobble anymore when jacked up in the air and running in drive. 400 mi now and everything is running great.