Save My Rear.... What?

sen2two

I've been lubing and pulling it all morning
Jul 18, 2013
396
58
49
Please forgive me, I know I had other thread on this, But I thought I would make one final post to get all of my questions answered in one thread.



So this was my first gear change and I got a little ahead of myself. Luckily I did this on a spare rear end I had in the garage and not on my car that I drive daily. So, I have a few questions to try and correct what I am obviously doing wrong. I didn't bother checking the tooth pattern with the paint yet. The gears move smoothly in some areas, and bind in others. I didn't remove the pinion bearing thinking I might get lucky and reuse all the stock shims since the gears are stock ford 3.73 gears pulled from an explorer 8.8. I was dead wrong...

1. How do I press the bearing off the pinion so I can add or remove shims for pinion depth? I have a press, but how do you get to it with the pinion gear in the way?

2. Do I change the shim that is in between the pinion nut and the bearing that stays in the nose of the housing? (right below the seal)

3. If I already bolted everything together and torqued it down, will I need a new crush sleeve? (I also heard of a crush sleeve delete, whats this about?)

4. I don't have the "special tool" to check for pinion depth, so can I just measure with calipers?

5. Is the pinion depth measured from the top of the pinion to the cover plate surface of the housing? (where the cover gets bolted to? Ford spec 4.420 (+/-.002")

6. When shimming the differential, do I remove the piece that goes in between the bearing race and the housing? Or do I just add shims in between that piece and the housing?
 
  • Sponsors (?)


I've built 2 8.8's and both times I've never had to play around with multiple shims.
I put 4.10's in the rear of my Bronco (from 3.55's) and literally didn't have to do a thing and I've been running it over a year now with 35's. I am of no help to you lol
 
I ordered the "crush sleeve eliminator". It's a slid piece of metal that cmes with shims. This should take care of my #3 question (will I need a new crush sleeve).

Anyone want to help with the rest?