I'm swapping out the pinion bearings on my rear end. I'm having a very hard time getting the inner/outer bearing races out of the housing. The car is on jack stands so there's not much room from the floor for me to swing the hammer hard enough to get those bearing races out. I need tips from those people who work on their rear end at home. I'm about to drop the rear and bring it out from underneath the car so I have more room. But I want to try something else first if possible. Thanks.

 

Your best bet is to just drop the rear and work on it outside the car. I just put a 12 bolt in my car, and it was very easy. I rebuilt the 12 bolt outside of the car, and I couldn't imagine working on it in the car. Just my $.02

 

I've dome mine under the car several times. I good long punch and a good heavy hammer and they come right out.

For the punch I just bought some steel rod from Home Depot and cut it to about 9 to 12" long. I have a nice heavy ball peen, about twice the size of a standard ball peen and it works well.

 

I guess I'll try a different hammer then. Hate to think that I have to install new bearing races as well.

Thanks guys. Any more tips are welcome!

 

I did it on a rack so this may not be much help to you, but I drove them out with a big hammer and a long punch. You should use tapered bearing race installers to put them back in but I didn't have any. So I used a nice long brass punch to put them back in so I didn't damage the races.

Whatever you do, don't drive the races back in with a steel punch.....you will trash them. Also, put your new races in the freezer right now. It will shrink them and make them easier to put in.

 

You can also use the old races to knock the new ones in that last little bit, still using a brass drift of course.

As for getting them out, I did it on the car the first time but I ended up using a 5lb sledge and a nice long steel punch. Regular hammers just didn't have enough grunt in the tight space under the car.

 

go to wal mart get a 20 dollarv air chisel it comes with a punch.use that .its so easy.use the old race to start the new one and a old socket to beat it on in

 

This air chisel looks promising! I'll look into it. Thanks everyone.

 

Use a brass puch for reinstall and make sure they are fully seated, you can tell by the sound that they make when they are fully in.


I use a rented slide hammer wih bearing puller from Autozone. Knocks them right out in seconds.

Other than that a long puch, and BFH. No rocket science here.

 

The air chisel works wonders! I had a time trying to get the races out of my 70 Nova with a ladder bar setup(too many bars in the way), you just couldn't get any swing to it at all with the angle I had to work with. Got mad and pulled the air chisel out of the box, switched it to the hammer setting(dual setting craftsman chisel and hammer) and they came right out. Putting the new ones back in I used the old race turned backwards and air hammered them back in. Took all of about 5 minutes after I pulled out the air hammer. Had been working on 1 race for 15 minutes with no luck with hammer and punch before that.

 

Air Hammer is what I used to get em out, it was easy as pie.....I used old race & pounded em in with air hammer Just like stated ^^^^^^^