S10 carrier bearing install

The yolks were even pre-greased. No vibrations or problems. Highly recommended!! Toggle menu Login or Sign Up 0. Current Stock:. Quantity: Decrease Quantity: Increase Quantity:. Share This Article.

If these fall to the garage floor, they will break. Use a Sharpie and some tape to mark each shim and designate its installation side. At this point, the pinion gear is exposed. If you are not changing gear ratios or the pinion bearings, there is no need to go any further. However, when you disassemble the axle, you might as well replace it all. Use a soft-blow hammer or mallet to tap the pinion out of the case from the front side; you need to hit the yoke side of the gear to remove the pinion.

Remove the small-diameter bearing on the front side behind the seal along with a fl at washer. Keep the washer, as it will be reused. The second pinion bearing is a large bearing pressed onto the gear, and it can only be removed with a press.

There should also be a crush sleeve on the gear shaft. Several races should be replaced because after extreme use or high mileage they are most often worn. The races on the axle tubes for the axle bearings are difficult to remove because you need a long bar to reach them from the inside. Guide a piece of heavy tubing or bar through the opposite end of the axle tube until the socket rests up against the bearing race.

Use a hammer to hit the bar and drive out the race. Repeat for the other side. With the carrier and related parts removed from the center section you have room to drive the pinion gear out of the housing. Use a soft hammer to tap on the threaded end of the pinion gear and drive it into the axle housing. If the axle assembly has not been damaged, the pinion should come out with a few taps.

If the pinion gear is stub-born and binds up, use a ballpeen hammer to drive it out. But you must protect the gear threads if you are going to reuse the pinion.

If that is the case, thread the pinion nut back onto the pinion and use a bigger hammer. If the pinion gear still does not slide out of the housing, you can put the pinion and housing in a press. You have to be careful here because too much pressure could break the housing. Another method is to apply heat to get the pinion gear to move. This bolt passenger car housing had been run low on gear oil, so it overheated and the front pinion bearing seized onto the pinion shaft.

I used an oxyacetylene torch to heat up the pinion gear but I am careful not to apply too much heat in any one area. Running this axle without fluid created some difficult problems in disassembly. In the end, I used a torch to cut the bearing and free the pinion. Lack of lubrication in an axle assembly typically causes bad things to happen such as catastrophic failure.

You can see the scarring on the pinion. With this kind of scoring, it cannot be reused. I will need a new pin-ion and ring when I reassemble this axle. I usually pressure wash the entire housing and axle tubes. Or you can apply a lot of degreaser, such as brake cleaner, and use a lot of rags to strip the grease, oil, and other gunk out of the housing.

Cleanliness is very important for bearing health. Do not leave the axle exposed to elements. Once you have cleaned it, coat the surfaces with WD to prevent oxidation or rust. If you are looking for a deep clean on your housing, especially if you plan on painting the unit, you might want to look into one of the following cleaning methods.

Although some enthusiasts own media blasting equipment, many do not own the other cleaning equipment. You may need to call the shops in your area to see if they have suitable cleaning equipment for your project. Media blasting is an excellent way to clean the housing and can be done at home with a portable unit or you can find a local blaster to do the job for you.

To clean the case, you can use several types of media: walnut shells, baking soda, crushed glass. Remember that you need to protect several precision finishes in your housing, so I recommend that you avoid using sand. If you use baking soda, be sure to neutralize the soda residue with a vinegar and water mixture before painting.

However neither walnut shells nor baking soda can touch rust. If the housing is just a little rusty, you can clean it by hand, or you can use crushed glass. Many shops no longer use this method because the acid is a hazardous substance and EPA permits are required.

If you can find a working hot tank, have your axle assembly cleaned in it because they do a better job than any other method. Just make sure you neutralize the acid before painting.

A wash tank is an environmentally safe equivalent to the hot tank. These are essentially large dishwasher-type units that use near-boiling water and detergent to clean the parts. If you can find one large enough to fit an axle assembly, it can do the job. Soak the housing with a degreaser even oven cleaner works quite well , let it sit for the specified amount of time, and then spray away.

You should expect that the axle is going to shed a lot of grease and grime so plan accordingly. It usually takes two to three washings to get it all clean. GM bolt axle assemblies use C-clips to hold the axle shafts in the axle tubes. The clip pushes against the spider gear or limited-slip plate while a steel bar held in place with a small pin bolt keeps the axles from pushing toward the middle of the carrier. Some GM bolt housings and Ford 9-inch housing use bolt-in axles.

Pressed-on bearings and a plate on the outer tubes retains the axles, and the backing plates bolt to this. This Chevy truck has a bolt truck rear differential and drum brakes, and I want far better performance from the rear brakes than drum brakes can deliver.

In addition, the bolt has plenty of miles on it so it needs a rebuild. Once the axles are out and the backing plates are off, the rest is a simple bolt-in process. A kit from Classic Performance Parts was installed on my shop truck, and it uses Cadillac calipers and replacement parts for the brakes. The brackets are well designed and easy to install. The edges are quite sharp, so you should wear gloves when handling them. The Cadillac calipers feature integrated parking brakes, so there is a secondary parking brake similar to some other kits.

This kit also included new parking brake cables that connect to the factory cable under the frame, which is a nice touch. One note about a rear disc brake swap: You have to replace the axles if you have six-lug axles and want to change to five-lugs. Many axle manufacturers offer these conversions from basic stock axles to high-performance units.

The bolt GM housing is quite stout, and many performance options are offered. If you want to swap bolt pat-terns, now is the time. I chose to keep the six-bolt pattern. The previously installed front discs conversion retained the six-bolt pattern as well. The entire process only took a few hours and the results were impressive, the truck stops better than before with just the front discs, and I retained the six-lug bolt pattern.

Remove all the lug nuts and take off the wheels. Many vehicles have old, rusty drums that can be difficult to remove.

A subtle tap with a hammer knocks the brake shoes loose from the brake drum. Use a ratchet and socket to remove all the bolts retaining the differential cover. You should remove the axles and thoroughly clean the differential housing to eliminate all traces of shavings. It does not take much in the way of metal shavings or pieces to ruin a differential.

The metal will have infiltrated not only the new bearings but also the pinion gears and clutches if the differential is a limited slip. A good, strong magnet is a handy tool to remove any residue. Cut the bearing cage with the cutoff tool.

To get the rear set up properly, you will need some tools — specifically, a dial-indicator with a magnetic base and some calipers. These are used to check the backlash of the gears and the thickness of the shims respectively. Backlash is the amount of play the ring gear can move before the pinion moves. Each rear-differential type as in bolt, bolt Dana 60 etc has its own specs, these are usually included in the gear-set instructions.

The 8. This is the basis for the rest of the install, so it needs to be checked first and it needs to be right. Next the contact pattern must be checked, which is done with colored grease included as part of the new gear install kit. Swapping gears is not that difficult, but it takes time to learn the process and a lot of trial and error. Setting the backlash and pinion depth dictated by the contact pattern means installing and removing the carrier and pinion.

On this swap, we did this about 15 times, for various reasons. The end result is a better traction, more power though the engine does spin a bit faster at speed because of the lower gears and all around better drivability. For more tips on rebuilding a GM 8.

A life-long gearhead, Jefferson Bryant spends more time in the shop than anywhere else. His career began in the car audio industry as a shop manager, eventually working his way into a position at Rockford Fosgate as a product designer. In , he began writing tech articles for magazines, and has been working as an automotive journalist ever since. Jefferson has also written 4 books and produced countless videos.

Jefferson operates Red Dirt Rodz, his personal garage studio, where all of his magazine articles and tech videos are produced. Your email address will not be published.