Anyone who knows about gears, GET IN!

Can you elaborate a bit more on why it won't go in? Is it too small, hitting something on the way, not lining up correctly, what? I actually know what you are talking about here i have removed my axles, and worked in the differential like 4 times now, But i did get pretty damn good at it.

First of all, make sure the axles are pushed as far outward as the C-clips will allow. Sorry to insult your intelligence, but it's usually the simple things that catch people up.

Next, rotate the diff 180* and try to slide it in from that side. Also, make sure your inserting the pin in the right direction. For some reason, I'm thinking that when I rebuilt the 8.8 in my old F150 the cross shaft was tapered slightly.

Your talking about the S-spring right? The S-shaped clip-looking thing that sits right in the middle of the trac-lok? Try compressing it. Compress it in a vise, and hold it with a few needle nose vise-grips. You may need a light duty hammer to tap it back into place, too.

Joe

Sounds like moving the S spring moved the side spider gears....you got the axles in, C-clips back in place....you go to slide the dowel in and it stops before you can get it to locate all the way in...???? have you tried to reposition the S spring??? it has to be in its proper location for the dowel to slide thru both ends...i would try to tap that S spring in some, re-try the dowel...

Or as mentioned rotate the dif to kinda re-locate the side spider gears....those side spiders gotta be at like 12:00 and 6:00 exactly to get the dowel in place....I would think if you keep doing some back and forth rotation you could luck out and get em aligned again....

can you look up the hole and see how much the gear moved??? maybe some gentle tapping could help??? or send something up the hole and try to move that spider over some??

You can see in the pic the S going in...right about where my clamp is, is the hole the dowel goes thru....you can see the hole on the outside (left) that your shooting for...how far are you getting the dowel in before it stops??? I would bet something like a long screwdriver you could persuade that back back over???



Good luck....