Engine/Transmission (1998.5 - 2002) Does this look normal?

[Momilesmoproblems]

I've not read what truck you have, year, model, transmission?

You may need to pull the carrier to get to it. Depends if you have an open carrier or not. This was my D70 when we rebuilt it. It had the OE LSD.

View attachment 139274

View attachment 139273

00 2500 47re D70U non lsd.


If I have to pull the carrier then I have to fool with a bunch of tolerance adjustments right? Backlash preload runout etc?

 

[BigPapa]

No, not if you don't change anything. All the shims will be under the bearings where they won't fall out.

 

[Momilesmoproblems]

No, not if you don't change anything. All the shims will be under the bearings where they won't fall out.

That’s great to know. I have 2 questions:

I can pull the carrier out if needed to access the pinion shaft then?


And if no bearing is torn up, if the ring and or pinion are damaged, can I just change those and go if they’re damaged then? I can’t thank you/you all enough for all the valuable expertise.

 

[BigPapa]

I've seen fellows replace bearings and leave the shims as they were, then run a pattern and check preload. If the pattern and preload are good and the gears are ok, it would be alright. Normally, with my tech, if you replaces anything, he does a new setup.

 

[Momilesmoproblems]

I've seen fellows replace bearings and leave the shims as they were, then run a pattern and check preload. If the pattern and preload are good and the gears are ok, it would be alright. Normally, with my tech, if you replaces anything, he does a new setup.

Very interesting. So I may or may not need to replace everything if it needs a new ring and pinion? Just bearings, ring, pinion?

And secondly, can you tell me what you mean by pattern and preload? Pattern being how the ring and pinion meshes against each other? Sorry to be a bit naive and dense.


thirdly, if I need to, I can zip the carrier retainers off, pull the carrier, then set the ring and pinion right and tighten the retainers back down without replacing parts assuming they’re not damaged tonight? Thanks again and sorry for all the questions

 

[BigPapa]

If the ring or pinion are damaged, then you'll need to do a complete setup and you may as well replace bearings, too. If you pull the carrier and nothing is damaged, reset the pinion and install the yoke, then put the carrier back in. Should be good to go.

 

[Momilesmoproblems]

Ok boys this is what I have. I don’t SEE any damage on the gears praise God.

The pinion is now loose and floppy, I assume I’m to pull it as far out as I can and as straight as I can, install seal, then yoke?

I had to pull bearing caps on the sides of the housing to make it loosen up but it did.

I’ll tighten up bearing caps. Any special tricks to
Doing so? I did not pull anything out but the 4 bolts and caps.

the cage looks like it took a beating which I’m HOPING is those metal fragments poorly pictured. Any idea what happened there?

The spiders all look fine from what I can see. What should I do now?

Thank you all so much for all the help you’ve given me

 

[Momilesmoproblems]

And also, How would I go about setting a pattern for these? Would I need paint and a dial like I googled?

 

[BigPapa]

Something got into that carrier here.

That’s had to leave some loose metal in there. If you don’t get it out it will eat the bearings and gears.

Did you remove the carrier? What did the pinion look like?

 

[Momilesmoproblems]

Something got into that carrier here.

View attachment 139279
That’s had to leave some loose metal in there. If you don’t get it out it will eat the bearings and gears.

Did you remove the carrier? What did the pinion look like?

we noticed the damage there, we don’t know what contacted it. What do you feel it could be?


We did not need to in order to get the pinion loose. We only took off the bearing straps on each side of the carrier and that was enough to free the pinion.

we will get all metal out to the best of our abilities.

From spinning the carrier which now moves backwards, we noticed no damage to the teeth of either the ring or pinion.

do I need to remove the carrier?

 

[BigPapa]

I would. It should come out fairly easily if you keep it straight. It’s just heavy. You won’t mess anything up.
Can you see the pinion? It’ll be a lot easier to clean out.

 

[Momilesmoproblems]

I would. It should come out fairly easily if you keep it straight. It’s just heavy. You won’t mess anything up.
Can you see the pinion? It’ll be a lot easier to clean out.

seems stuck in. Caps are removed. Do I need to pull axle shafts to do it?

i can see most of if not all the pinion. I think the very end of it must have contacted the housing, and by the end I mean the star shape at the end of the gear head itself. Mostly, there seemed to be metal pieces that were NOT part of the pinion that I removed from the pinion. There may be minor marks but I don’t see a definitive chip anywhere. Very possibly a tiny impression on one of the END of the pinion head gears where it resembles a star but then again possibly not.

 

[BigPapa]

Yes, sorry, I took it for granted you had them out.

It’s up to you. If you can see it and are comfortable there’s no gear damage, put it back together and see how it feels by hand. If you feel the least bump, you have damage.

If it were mine, I’d pull the carrier where you can see everything and clean everything good.

 

[brucejohnson]

seems stuck in. Caps are removed. Do I need to pull axle shafts to do it?

i can see most of if not all the pinion. I think the very end of it must have contacted the housing, and by the end I mean the star shape at the end of the gear head itself. Mostly, there seemed to be metal pieces that were NOT part of the pinion that I removed from the pinion. There may be minor marks but I don’t see a definitive chip anywhere. Very possibly a tiny impression on one of the END of the pinion head gears where it resembles a star but then again possibly not.

Definitely looks like the pinion gear leading edges plowed some serious metal strips out of the case. Some pretty big strips of metal throughout the pictures.
It looks like some scoring on a couple of the spider gears. Maybe just some flash reflection? Since you are this deep into disassembly, as Scott mentioned, I would second the recommendation to remove the carrier in order to get a better look at the pinion as well as better access to flush the case and bearings of the metal shavings.

 

[Momilesmoproblems]

Definitely looks like the pinion gear leading edges plowed some serious metal strips out of the case. Some pretty big strips of metal throughout the pictures.
It looks like some scoring appearance on a couple of the spider gears. Maybe just some flash reflection? Since you are this deep into disassembly I would continue to remove the differential to get a better look at the pinion as well as better access to flush the case and bearings of the metal shavings.

I pretty much have to do that I feel by this time. Insane to
me how it can move that much and they didn’t have a better way about designing this.

THANKFULLY there appears to be little to no damage to the star shape almost turbine like end piece of the pinion. Possibly a tiny bit of deflection on the end piece that I don’t think contacts anything but then again maybe not. Probably as good of an outcome as there could be. The blades look sharp and any metal shards still on seem to have come from
The cage and not the gear.

I feel the scoring is probably just flash to the best of my semi experienced eye. I do think there are some exacerbations from the so so camera. There are plenty of smooth wear marks due no doubt to the 188k it has, but from what I believe (I’m no authority here) no hard pitting damage. I’m pretty OCD and hope I caught any flaws. Please let me know your thoughts thank you so much for your input this far.

 

[Momilesmoproblems]

Yes, sorry, I took it for granted you had them out.

It’s up to you. If you can see it and are comfortable there’s no gear damage, put it back together and see how it feels by hand. If you feel the least bump, you have damage.

If it were mine, I’d pull the carrier where you can see everything and clean everything good.

Thank you so much. No worries, I understand. I will pull them more than likely. I will clean like there’s no tomorrow. It felt good with the pass side wheel spinning in reverse very slowly. It wanted to catch going ‘forward’ which I think is the unset pinion so we weren’t enthusiastic with force.

The occasional light catch rolling in what would be reverse I believe was the unset pinion. Spiders felt great too. We didn’t forcefully spin the wheels at any point tonight now that the pinion is unsiezed.

What type of calibrations will I need to do to get it assembled back right after I pull the axles? I think preload is how many threads the original nut went on.

You mentioned a pattern. Will I need paint and to see how the parts contact each other and at what pitch?

How can I adjust those if so?

Unfortunately I’m still out a driveshaft so the enormous amount of help will shine through even if it does take a while. I’m thinking the aluminum 1 piece sold on ebay for $850 shipped since I have the longest truck they made.
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH.

 

[NIsaacs]

You may know this, but just an FYI, the caps and housing are marked, they need to go back the same way.

As long as you don't change any hard parts, no pattern or pre load will change. If you pull the pinion, keep track of the shim stack that is between the two bearings.

Don't sweat the thread count on the pinion nut, the shim stack will set your pre load to the original setting.

If you do need hard parts, I recommend you get some experienced help on Dana axles. They are the most difficult axle to repair of all axles.

 

[Momilesmoproblems]

You may know this, but just an FYI, the caps and housing are marked, they need to go back the same way.

As long as you don't change any hard parts, no pattern or pre load will change. If you pull the pinion, keep track of the shim stack that is between the two bearings.

Don't sweat the thread count on the pinion nut, the shim stack will set your pre load to the original setting.

If you do need hard parts, I recommend you get some experienced help on Dana axles. They are the most difficult axle to repair of all axles.

thank you so much for the valuable info. I did not know that but judging by how this project is going, I sort of assumed it. Thanks again

 

[Momilesmoproblems]

Well we got it off.
There is a bit of marks in places, here’s my best description.

The pinion has a tiny ding and possible small deformation on 2 additional teeth on the very end of the small part. I tried to picture it:

Above shows the pinion. Please know this is a crappy mobile phone pic. There are shavings we will clean with brake clean if it’s not too damaged.

We wanted to include a pic of the big side to show any possible wear down.
Here’s our ring gear:

There’s a feelable imperfection on those teeth but I had to feel pretty carefully to feel it. It’s not pushed in quite as bad as it looks I don’t think, none of these flaws are as bad as they look I think. Only the edge on 1 tooth had a feelable ding. NO chips anywhere other than the carrier housing.

 

[Momilesmoproblems]

These look to be the seals on the sides of the housing. Please let me know your thoughts on this too.