darkserpant

I dont know if i have a problem or not. I am doing a gear swap and I tried to do everything by the letter. Everything is installed back into the rear but it is still open(no cover yet) anyway slid the axels into the carrier. Can somebody please tell me how tight the gears should be when you put your hand on the studs and spin the axel. Now all the bolts are tightned up on the carrier and when I try to turn the axel by hand it is hard. I have to get a short rod and put between the studs for more leverage to be able to turn the gears by hand. They do turn round and round then, but I'm worried maybe it"s to tight since I cant turn the axel just with my bare hand without using some type of leverage. Now there isnt a lot of lubrication since the rear is still open. Could that be it or did I do somthing wrong? How easy should you be able to spin the gears by grasping one of the axels? Please help.

mjr46

often you won't be able to spin them by hand, but when setting the rear up you should of put a light coating of gear oil on all the bearings, also run a light coating of gear oil over the gears themselves, what is backlash set at?? also how tight did you set the crush/preload on the pinion bearing??? new or used bearing???

darkserpant

The bearing and everything is new. I placed the pinion in and started to tighten the pinion nut 1/8 turn at a time till the play was out of the pinion. Then maybe a few more 1/8 turns after the play was out. I dont have a torqe bar that goes down past 5 ft. pds. I think you should have 15 inc. pds. Which is 1.3 foot pds. After i tighted the pinion and no more play. I put my torqe bar that goes down to 5 ft. pds and turn the pinion and it did not click. The pinion turned. So since it did not click it was well below 5 ft. pds. I never did this before and had no idea if I should be able to turn it by hand or not. Your response made me feel a little better. Will be finishing tonight. And will be putting tire to street. I will let you know how things work out. Just got to figure out how to take out the back seats so I can replace the abs sensors I broke off to get the axels out. If you know how they come out please let me know. Thanks

mjr46

not the best methood for accuracy on pinion preload expecially if it's your first time, I have a special torque wrench that measures rotational drag in inch lbs to get it dead on

67mustang302

This ^^

I have a small in-lb wrench as well just for this same purpose. You MUST make sure the pinion bearing preload is correct or you'll fry the whole rear end.

Bubba 95SN

Don't use a shotgun when a bb gun will do the job. Correct tools are used for a reason.

uedlose

you still never answered what was the backlash set at?? could you turn the pinon and gears by hand? I would not run it until you recheck everything..

darkserpant

Ok I got an update for you guys. And it's not good news. i gambled and I lost. I finished it up and took it for a test drive. Wrong thing to do. I made it 2 miles when all of a sudden as I was coming to a stop sign the rear locked up. I am in the middle of the intersection now. I had no choice but to put in reverse and force it off the road. The **** I heard in that rear was a sound I dont want to hear again. It wasnt easy forcing the car to the side of the road. I get out and bend down to the rear and I hear the oil just boiling litterly. I touched the rear and I dont hink the sun wouldnt of been much hotter. I had to call a flat bed cause a normal tow truck wouldnt of worked cause the rear was seized. I had my baby flat beded to a transmision shop. They wont be able to look at it till Monday. I assume I fried the gears. That bill wont be cheap. Live and learn. Except sometimes learning gets really expensive.

67mustang302

Yes, you fried the rear. Something was too tight and generated too much friction, and too much heat. Not only did it burn the oil off but the gears will probably be partially melted/deformed when it's pulled apart. Hopefully it didn't burn up anything you need to reuse, like axles or the pinion snout support.

mjr46

Sorry to hear that, now don't take this the wrong way, and I understand why people attempt things themselves, but sometimes it's best to pay a pro to do things, cause the ole saying of there never is enough money to pay to have it done right, but there's always enough to pay to have it done a second time, comes to mind....I hope you get it straightened out, best of luck