8.8 Re-gear

[OU812]

This is by no means a write up. I don’t want to hijack anyone else’s thread with all my questions. So some of you already know that last weekend in Big Bear I damaged my ring gear. I think it may have been damaged initially by broken pieces of my Track-Loc clutches a few months ago. I plan to remove the Track-Loc carrier and use and open carrier. Today I bought my new gears and the install kit. Tomorrow I need to adjust the valves in my old Chevy so I can use that as a daily driver while I work on this. Saturday I will pull the axle because I think it will be much easier to work on out of the Jeep. Thank you in advance for sharing your experience and expertise.

And because we all love pictures so much hear is some pictures of the carnage so far.

When I first realised there was a problem.


The damage...


The tooth


The new ring and pinion


The setup kit.

[aw12345]

Have fun with it Scott, will be a good primer for ya,
This way you can regear the Jeep to your liking whenever you are ready

[Guest]

I remember going through that! Good luck. Post some pics

[2blk2drs]

lookin good buddy! glad yours is gonna be the "practice" one

[aw12345]

Here is a nice picture that shows how to get to the desired gear pattern.



Don't worry to much about bearing preload and such when trying to get the pinion depth right once you got that shim the small bearing to get the right bearing preload should be 15 to 25 inch pounds with a small beam style torque wrench or just a little drag on the bearings. then set the back lash

This picture shows how to move the pattern around pretty well. To sum it up the pinion depth is correct when it touches the gear tooth on the ring gear in the middle on the load side as well as the coast side. Then the back lash determines how deep on the tooth it makes contact.

If you have problems just pm me with some pictures if you run into problems.
Glad to try and help you out buddy

Are you going to take a ride with Sean Saturday night?

[OU812]

Thanks Art. What manual is that? I have some old "Motor" manuals that have the setup procedure. I will be able to use the press at work to press on my bearings. I am really happy to be able to learn this stuff. And thank you to Paulhead for the 8.8 open carrier and spider gears. As soon as I advust the points and timing and valves and carb on the chevy Saturday morning I'll be pulling this axle out and getting started.

[aw12345]

It came out of a factiry manual for an old Dodge motorhome

[OU812]

Looks like I got to this in the nic of time. I found another tooth missing when I pulled the cover. I didn't have any trouble getting the ring gear on the carrier. I put the ring gear in the oven for 30 min at 175 and the carrier in the freezer for 30 min. It slipped right on. Also It looks like there was only one shim on each side of the carrier. Maybe the factory just machines this shim for fitment? I am almost all done with the teardown. I am having a hell of a time getting the two pinion bearing races out.

I made my set up bearings with a di-grinder. The slip on perfectly.


This is how I am trying to get the bearing races out. I have a two jaw puller on a slide hammer. Note the slide hammer is still on the pinion bearing because I haven’t got it out yet. Would it make any since to use a map gas torch to heat up the housing?

[2blk2drs]

try growing a pair?
it usualy helps :beer:

[Materdaddy]

try growing a pair?
it usualy helps :beer:

x2

Thanks for the :beer:

Tomorrow I'm out, I have plans, but if you're working on it again tonight, I might be able to come over again.

[OU812]

I was pulling that slide hammer the best I could. I think this is going to require fabricationg a special puller. I think I found a special puller just for this but it was almost $200.

[aw12345]

A long thick punch and a hammer will make short work of it.
Flip the axle over and just knock it out. Unless it spun and welded itself to the housing which is highly unlikely.
If you have a welder, welding a couple of small beads across the width of the race will shrink it and make it just about fall out by it self.
If all else fails come visit me in Ontario, and we will set you up. The thick carrier shims are a ford thing same goes for a Rubicon dana 44. If its to far off you can buy them in different thicknesses or after measuring the thickness of each shim have a machine shop grind them down about 0.010 then you can use thin shims behind the bearings to get your backlash right.
That slide hammer does not have enough weight to knock those races out, for what you want to do you need about a 5 lbs slide hammer like an OTC silver slapper. Still on a tool truck you should be able to find a long tapered punc called a bearing race installer. Those work good for knocking out bearing races, I use that to knock wheel bearing races out of big rigs, the thing will cost you 15 to 20 bucks of a tool truck and works like a charm its a bit over a foot long and the shank is about 5/8" with a tapered oval point

[GP4Play]

Wish I was closer to give you a hand Scott,still have one good arm.Thanks for keeping us posted ,was wondering how it was going.
Dennis

[OU812]

Ok, its been slow going so far but I am still making progress. Tonight I got the last of the bearing races out. With all my bearings and races out I used a die-grinder and a cylinder hone to turn my old bearings into "setup bearings". This way they will slide on and off easily while I adjust my shims. Thanks to Materdaddy for letting me use his pinion depth tool. My pinion has a marking indicating that it should be 2.625 inches away from the center of the carrier bearing. So tomorrow I will find the center of the bearing. I looked at it for a few minutes before I called it a day. It is a little more complicated then it sounds. But if it works I will only have to shim the pinion one time. I dont know how many miles were on this axle when the previous owner swapped it in. But the bearings were toast. I am glad I didn't just grab another junk yard 8.8. When I am done with this I will have all new bearings. Take a look at the pitting in the bearing races..

[aw12345]

That much pitting is actually pretty common in differentials
So is spinning of the carrier bearing races