diferential out for repair

[10sec89]

I think I had a pinion bearing go bad. Constant whine/growl. Horrible a 80mph. Just annoying at 45mph. No different sounds as in a coast or drive side gear whine. Pulled it out tonight. I will be pulling it apart tomorrow. Need to make a cradle to bolt to my bench, and a case spreader yet. All new bearings and seals going in, perhaps a differential clutch pack rework while it's out.

 

[FiveOhJoe]

I had that same whine/growl from my pinion bearing. It had severe pitting like this in two places and a blue-ish tinge to it in other spots. Check your carrier bearings. One of mine spun on the carrier and now I have to replace the carrier.

 

[perry2k12]

How long of a job was it to yank that thing?

 

[10sec89]

I got it out in 2.5 hours with out being any sort of hurry, or using the air tools. I got a whole new bearing kit from Tousley with the heavy duty GT500 pinion bearing. Going to do 1/2 shaft bearings and seals too.

 

[10sec89]

Pinion bearings were wore but the carriers looked like FiveOhJOe's above.
I made a holding fixture from a photo found on here that worked great. I didn't need a case spreader.
I measure backlash at .025 before tear down. Was way out due to the carrier bearings being chewed up.
Installed all new bearings and seals. Installed gears and came in at .013 which is within spec.
Tested the car.....much better, Still hear something faintly but might be tire/road noise at 45-50 mph.

 

[FiveOhJoe]

I just got my diff back from being rebuilt. The carrier bearings spun on the carrier and wore the carrier down by 1-2 thousandths. I had to buy a new carrier because he said if he just but the new bearings on the carrier they would end up spinning again after 10k or so. Backlash was 22 or something like that when he tore it down, and 12 when he put it back together. He was able to use the stock shims with the new carrier. Hopefully you checked yours with a micrometer

Here is how it looked after I got it back. pretty much everything is new besides the gears themselves

Still pretty good contact for a used gear

 

[10sec89]

^ Looks good. I have 100+ miles on mine and it is silent now. Everything went smooth for me, thankfully my bearings didn't spin in the carrier. I think it would have happened soon though, the races were worse than yours.

 

[Tractionless1]

Ditch the cover brace for a full reinforced cover. Grab a solid pinion sleeve and torsen type diff. if you can. No reason to run that diff that has to constantly be rebuilt, requiring dropping each time. I opted for MW billet bearing caps as well but that's going to require machining the housing etc. I figured on dropping it once and that being it, never again.