Rearend Noise
02-15-2004, 02:28 PM
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Rearend Noise I just put in a pinion seal becasue my old one was leaking. I made sure that I tightened it back up and I added more gear oil, but I did not have time to take the diff. cover off and put the gm additive and gear oil, instead I just added gear oil. Now I am hearing a clicking noise somtimes when I go for drive to reverse and or reverse to drive, and if you start to break torque it a little. I know I sould change the gear oil and put the additive in, but will that stop it? or is there more to it ?
Thanks Dan
Thanks Dan
02-15-2004, 03:04 PM
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Then how do you put the perload on the bearings and what should I tighten it with or should I just take it to the dealler? Becasue I have a warrantee? I don't think they would take my warrantee away if they see that there is a different seal in there would they ?
Last edited by LS1999pewterZ; 02-15-2004 at 03:16 PM.
02-21-2004, 09:49 PM
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Hmm, so why did you replace it yourself if it's under warranty?
Anyway, this post explains the procedure to set preload on the pinion shaft. It sounds like it's from the service manual, but it doesn't say.
I have a question to all: I just did this pinion seal replacement myself this weekend. I did not have an accurate torque wrench that could read in in/lbs, so I followed the above instructions to tighten the nut until the yoke no longer moves in/out, then tightened a little more. The car drives fine, except it makes whirring noises especially audible at 40mph. Is this an obvious overtightening problem, or something else? The post above says something about a collapsable bearing spacer. Am I in danger of damaging the bearing if I overtighten just once?
Anyway, this post explains the procedure to set preload on the pinion shaft. It sounds like it's from the service manual, but it doesn't say.
I have a question to all: I just did this pinion seal replacement myself this weekend. I did not have an accurate torque wrench that could read in in/lbs, so I followed the above instructions to tighten the nut until the yoke no longer moves in/out, then tightened a little more. The car drives fine, except it makes whirring noises especially audible at 40mph. Is this an obvious overtightening problem, or something else? The post above says something about a collapsable bearing spacer. Am I in danger of damaging the bearing if I overtighten just once?
Last edited by spoulson; 02-21-2004 at 10:17 PM.
02-22-2004, 11:39 AM
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Nevermind... it looks like I'm in over my head. I think I'll just let a dealer replace it again. I apparently skipped the step of resetting preload by removing the carrier and replacing this spacer, which is really too involved for the time I have to work on this.
02-25-2004, 08:16 PM
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And uh... just for the record, I f'd it all up. The instructions in the thread I mentioned are very incomplete and are unlikely from any service manual.
Servicing the rear end is a very precision science that, IMHO, requires training for those without prior experience.
The first time I tightened the pinion nut, I couldn't get it back to where I marked it because the mark wore off (mistake number one). So I tightened it too far (mistake number two). After the seal replacement and gear oil change, I drive it around the block to see how it felt. This sealed the casket for my poor rear end. After hearing whirring sounds, I redid the pinion nut but, instead tighted it just enough to keep the yoke from moving. This is a better torque setting. However, I had already overtightened it, which smooshed the crush colar that's on the inside of the rear, which should've been replaced beforehand. Had I known about this crush colar, I would've been more careful. Once smooshed, this altered not only preload settings, but gear mesh. One more drive around the block and I knew it was bad. On deceleration, the rear made a horrible sounding rubbing and scraping sound.
The dealer showed me the internals of the rear after driving barely a mile during test drives and taking it to the dealer. The sounds it was making was the pinion gear rubbing the carrier (differential assembly, to the untrained). The pinion was also misaligned on the ring gear, so it was driving on part of the teeth putting a slight haze on the teeth. This is generally not a terrible thing. But the worst was that the pinion gear must've been pushed against the carrier hard enough that the wheels were binding up every rotation. The spider gears were also affected as they were knocked out of alignment from the carnage.
So the verdict was to get a whole new rear and scrap the original. Why not rebuild the carrier and put in new ring/pinion and bearings? Well their explanation was they feel they would have better success rate by going with all new because the rear housing could also be affected by the misalignment, plus I get a 3yr warranty. I sort of disagree with this judgement, but I don't have much of a choice. Either way, it's expensive to fix and it probably wouldn't be too much more to go with all new. The bill came to about $2100 and I'll have it in about a week.
At least NOW there is some record that this pinion seal isn't as easy as others have described.
Servicing the rear end is a very precision science that, IMHO, requires training for those without prior experience.
The first time I tightened the pinion nut, I couldn't get it back to where I marked it because the mark wore off (mistake number one). So I tightened it too far (mistake number two). After the seal replacement and gear oil change, I drive it around the block to see how it felt. This sealed the casket for my poor rear end. After hearing whirring sounds, I redid the pinion nut but, instead tighted it just enough to keep the yoke from moving. This is a better torque setting. However, I had already overtightened it, which smooshed the crush colar that's on the inside of the rear, which should've been replaced beforehand. Had I known about this crush colar, I would've been more careful. Once smooshed, this altered not only preload settings, but gear mesh. One more drive around the block and I knew it was bad. On deceleration, the rear made a horrible sounding rubbing and scraping sound.
The dealer showed me the internals of the rear after driving barely a mile during test drives and taking it to the dealer. The sounds it was making was the pinion gear rubbing the carrier (differential assembly, to the untrained). The pinion was also misaligned on the ring gear, so it was driving on part of the teeth putting a slight haze on the teeth. This is generally not a terrible thing. But the worst was that the pinion gear must've been pushed against the carrier hard enough that the wheels were binding up every rotation. The spider gears were also affected as they were knocked out of alignment from the carnage.
So the verdict was to get a whole new rear and scrap the original. Why not rebuild the carrier and put in new ring/pinion and bearings? Well their explanation was they feel they would have better success rate by going with all new because the rear housing could also be affected by the misalignment, plus I get a 3yr warranty. I sort of disagree with this judgement, but I don't have much of a choice. Either way, it's expensive to fix and it probably wouldn't be too much more to go with all new. The bill came to about $2100 and I'll have it in about a week.
At least NOW there is some record that this pinion seal isn't as easy as others have described.
02-25-2004, 08:53 PM
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Sorry to hear about your problems. That's interesting though. Last time my parts man checked, GM discontinued selling the complete rear end assembly. I disagree with your dealer's verdict also. Even buying all GM dealer service parts at list price, a competent gear installer could have rebuilt the rear end for less than $2100. Using a SLP takeout carrier ($100), dealer gears ($500) or aftermarket gears ($200) and a master install kit ($100) and say 300 labor, the rear end could have been fixed. Just because you made a mistake is no reason for a dealer to make you bend over. My guess is they do not have anyone at the dealership who is good at installing gears. I know how and have done gear installs correctly and they are sticking it to you on this one.
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02-26-2004, 08:02 PM
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Originally Posted by 2xLS1
Sorry to hear about your problems. That's interesting though. Last time my parts man checked, GM discontinued selling the complete rear end assembly. I disagree with your dealer's verdict also. Even buying all GM dealer service parts at list price, a competent gear installer could have rebuilt the rear end for less than $2100. Using a SLP takeout carrier ($100), dealer gears ($500) or aftermarket gears ($200) and a master install kit ($100) and say 300 labor, the rear end could have been fixed. Just because you made a mistake is no reason for a dealer to make you bend over. My guess is they do not have anyone at the dealership who is good at installing gears. I know how and have done gear installs correctly and they are sticking it to you on this one.
They're putting in a Jasper reman (aka 'new' to them) rear. I did price out 12 bolt Mosers and they'd be more than this job. I'm not happy about it, but it is my daily driver and I don't have the time or resources to do it the best possible way, unfortunately. I'm just going to have to eat it and not **** it up again. Life goes on...