droptopstang
forum member
Rebuilt my rear end this weekend. The gears had been whining so loud, and the pinion seal was a bit leaky so it was def time to freshen it up. I bought some used stock 3.55 gears from a member on here with really low miles on them to swap out, as well as changing the bearings and pinion seal. I didn't even realize just how loud they really were until after this was done and not making any more noise, so much better!
The hardest part about this whole job had nothing to do with the gears. The passenger side panhard bar bolt was seized inside the sleeve and would not come out at all. This is as far out as it would go:
I tried everything to get that sucker out but no luck. I ended up cutting the head of the bolt off and then pushing it in as far as it would go the other way so I could cut the thread end off too just to get the bar out:
Then I threw it on the mill and drilled the bolt out. Took me about 2 hours just for that one stupid bolt.
I was able to just prop up the driveshaft on the exhaust so that saved me taking the rest of it off:
Didn't take too many pics but here it is mid-job:
And right after opening the diff up. Nothing was broken or seriously wrong, just really needed a good cleaning, new gears and fresh oil. Man, I need to clean and paint under there next!
A little trick when filling the rear end back up. Cut the fill top of the bottle to where you can tightly run a tube down to the bottom and then drill an air hole at the top. Turn down your pressure reg. to about 10lbs and then shoot air in the hole to pressurize the bottle and the fluid will run right into the diff from the ground. Super easy.
The hardest part about this whole job had nothing to do with the gears. The passenger side panhard bar bolt was seized inside the sleeve and would not come out at all. This is as far out as it would go:
I tried everything to get that sucker out but no luck. I ended up cutting the head of the bolt off and then pushing it in as far as it would go the other way so I could cut the thread end off too just to get the bar out:
Then I threw it on the mill and drilled the bolt out. Took me about 2 hours just for that one stupid bolt.
I was able to just prop up the driveshaft on the exhaust so that saved me taking the rest of it off:
Didn't take too many pics but here it is mid-job:
And right after opening the diff up. Nothing was broken or seriously wrong, just really needed a good cleaning, new gears and fresh oil. Man, I need to clean and paint under there next!
A little trick when filling the rear end back up. Cut the fill top of the bottle to where you can tightly run a tube down to the bottom and then drill an air hole at the top. Turn down your pressure reg. to about 10lbs and then shoot air in the hole to pressurize the bottle and the fluid will run right into the diff from the ground. Super easy.
