Oh no, pinion seal leak... gears?

[mijo_latino]

So I want to know what should I do now?

Here's the catch... I have a new set of ford 3.73's sitting in the garage since winter. Also the Motive bearing kit,a trac-lok rebuild kit, and 2 bottles of RP differential oil.

I've beend reading and reading on how to do the swap and think its time for me to fry the car and attempt this. Do you think its possible to do the gears with only reading up a bunch of how to's and a bit of "backyard" subsitutions with the some of the recommended tools? This meaning i don't have a hydraulic press, but a nice 2 foot 50lb vise. Bearing pullers... i guess a trip to autozone would help.. or a nice smart wack with a hammer. j/k.

main study material
http://www.superstallions.com/tech/drive/gears/gears.html
http://www.corral.net/tech/drivetrain/gears.html

 

[IH8RICE2]

Personally i wouldn't do gears yourself unless you are a very skilled mechanic. I know how you feel though wanting to save +300 dollars bc i love installing all the mods i buy too. But gears is just too risky for me. If the ring and pinon are set perfect you could have whine or totally rip your rearend a new one.

 

[mity2]

Way i see it when it comes to Ring&pinion install is that if you have to ask, then its prolly over your head.

U'll need to get Micrometer at least to do it right. But then again, i would not do gears myself. If you don't do it "Just" right, you'll eat up gears, and running in to all sorts of noise and stuff..

 

[Kilgore Trout]

They will be perfect the second, third, or perhaps fourth time you do the install. Getting them right on the first try with no experience is highly unlikely. So the only question which remains is what is your time worth?

 

[mijo_latino]

Thanks for the replies, looks like im just going to change out the pinion seal then. May as well look at the conditions under there while i'm at it. Im sure i need to top off the differential oil.

 

[Ruckus46Gt]

do realize changing the pinion seal isnt an easy job it means setting backlash and that. Believe you have to take a couple things out the rear to fix it.

 

[mijo_latino]

Yeah, thats why i was thinking just go all the way and swap gears and such. The main thing will be to set the correct load on the pinion nut. You basically check the load intially taking it off and put that load back in without loosening to get the measurement. And making sure everything lines up for harmonics. Read over the Haynes manual and it seems simple enough.

 

[Dan_Soprano]

Gears aren't hard to do. You have plenty of resources to reference on the net. Get the right tools and go at it. More time consuming then anything.