As title says, how do you set pinion preload? I fubard mine when I changed my rear pinion seal and now I have a whining when i let off the gas... Am I going to ruin anything by driving the car a bit till I can get it fixed?

 

tighten the nut a 1/2 a turn and see if the whining goes away first before you rip apart the rear

 

this sucks lol... Alright man will do..

What happens if I get it too tight?

 

dont sweat it brotha, im sure it will be fine. If your really ****, buy a new crush collar on the help board at Autozone and rip the rear apart and install the new collar.

Jack up rear of car

Remove tires

Remove brakes

Remove inspection cover

Remove paddle or pin

Push in axles

Remove C clips

Remove axles

Remove caps

Pry out carrier with out damaging it or the rear

Remember which carrier shims go in which side (DONT SCREW THIS UP)

Remove pinion nut and washer

Remove yoke

Remove outter pinion bearing

Remove pinion

Remove crush collar

Install new crush collar

Install Pinion

Install Outter bearing

Install Yoke

Install Nut and washer

Torque nut down a little with an impact gun (not reccomended) or breakerbar if you can hold pinion from rotating with a breaker bar

Tighten the pinion nut up a bit then get an inch pound in/lbs torque wrench with an adapter for the big socket needed to go on the pinion nut, squirt some oil on teh pinion bearings and turn the pinion with the in/lbs torque wrench, the torque wrench should click at 12 in/lbs if you reuse the old bearings and about 20 in/lbs if you use new bearings.

Once you have the pinion nut tight enough (it takes a lot) where it takes 12 inch pounds to turn it with old bearings and 20 inch pounds to turn it with new bearings your preload is set.

Put the carrier back in with shims on one side, put one cap on, torque it down, then install the shims on the other side, wack um in with a small hammer to get them started, put the second cap over the shims and torque it down and it will seat the shims properly so that you dont have to smack them all the way in with the hammer.

Put the rest together and cross your fingers.

In other words, just tighten the nut 1/2 a turn and hope it goes away, or find a local shop that is willing to tackel this, bring them a crush collar, a gasket, 2 quarts of gear oil and a 100 dollar bill and just say do it

 

I doubt I'd ever pay to have this done, but Im not wanting to have to do it myself just yet lol..

Is any damage going to occur driving it to and from school today and to school tomorrow * nearest time I can get it on a lift * with the incorrect pinion preload? Could I use a ft/lbs tq wrench on 1ft/lb * if it even has that setting, I'll check today lol... * What happens if 1/2 turn is too much, what will it damage?

 

A) you can't check preload with the rear assembled, has to be completely apart except for the pinion
2) a ft-lb torque wrench won't work, nor will a 'click' type. needs to be a 'beam' style, in-lb torque wrench.

I think at this point, if you don't want to / can't do it the correct way, your best bet would be trial and error. Tighten it slightly more, spin things by hand just to make sure you don't feel ALOT more resistance. Put back together and drive it to see if the whine goes away or gets better. It may take a couple tries. Just to try tightening it another 1/2 turn is bad advice I think. It may only take 1/8 of a turn to get it. Maybe more, but if your close which you likely are, another 1/2 turn will be way too tight and too tight will burn up the bearings and you will be completely rebuilding the thing.

Good luck!

 

Ok...I just re-geared two axles recently. Granted they were Jeep axles...and only one used a crush sleeve...but Ive done quite a few in the past.

It takes around 200 FT-LBS to begin to crush a crush sleeve. Once it begins to crush, you have to be really careful how much further you tighten it. The pinion pre-load will increase rapidly. One second it can be 0 in-lbs, 5 degrees on the nut later and it can shoot up into the teens...

The above procedures are pretty good. If you want to do it right, you'll have to get the ft-lbs wrench that lets you know when you are close to 200 ft-lbs. and an in-lbs wrench to measure teh pinion pre-load. Once you get close to 200 ft-lbs, I ditch the big torque wrench and use a big breaker bar. I tighten it by 1/8" increments. Then I keep checking the pinion preload...and sneak up on it.

As was stated above...DONT just try to squeeze another half turn out of it. That will likely put you in a dangerous area for preload...Just give it some tugs to get it to budge and see how things sound.

This is kinda hard to do under the car...but its possible.

Or...you can just try to tighten up on that nut. Its gotta be pretty tight, so dont be afraid to crank on it alittle. If you are using a regular 1/2 ratchet, you will be able to pull pretty hard beacuse getting 200 ft-lbs is tough with one of those.

I made the mistake of overtightening a crush sleeve pinion before. I didnt have another crush sleeve, so I said eh...it'll be good. Haha...then it fubar'ed my pinion bearings. I was pretty far over the preload spec though...(first time doing it). Now I always order a few crush sleeves just to have around.

Good luck! Let us know what works for ya!

Justin

 

2)or a dial torqe wrench.A "click" type will not give accurate results.

 

2)or you can use a dial torqe wrench.A "click" type will not give accurate results.

Just some additional FYI.

 

I use a Snap-on Torque O meter to set all of my assemblies, look for it at Ebay. The stock 10 bolt is usually 18-22 inch lbs or rotational torque to set new bearing preload.