steve87iroc

iTrader: (1)

just woundering since the inner pinion bearing shims are on the back of the bearing how do you set the pinion depth without pressing the new bearing on i was thinking of taking an old bearing and honing it out so i could set it is this ok. also im going from 2.73 to 4.10's just a guess what shims should i start out using thanks

AlkyIROC

A properly outfitted driveline shop will have setup bearings. An inner pinion bearing is machined with a few thousands of an inch taken off. This allows the bearing to easily slide on and off until the proper shim stack is found. Once the pinion depth is determined, a new bearing is installed.

Of course a proper driveline shop will also have a pinion depth gauge and they'll take the number off the pinion.

sofakingdom

iTrader: (1)

What Stephen said...

I just took a pair of regular pinion head & tail bearings and used a brake cylinder hone on them until they slide freely on and off. You're on the right track there, except DO NOT use old bearings. Use new ones. Then once you've got it established, put un-honed ones in and put it together.

Although you'll find, unless you're screwing up and installing the Richmond drag-race-specific gears (usually a mistake), that the factory got that piece of the mcahine work on the housing REAL close in most cases, like probably 99 times out of a 100; so the stock shim thickness, .035", will work an equal number of times. Remember, gears and carriers are precision machines parts, but the housing is just a casting; which do you think would be machined more accurately? What you're actually doing with the shims, is shimming the HOUSING to fit THE PARTS, not the other way around.

You'll also find that the process goes much easier if you use a solid spacer (crush sleeve eliminator) instead of the stock crush sleeve. It allows you to put it together and take it apart as many times as you want; it allows you to put as much torque on the nut as you want, and not have to stop torquing when the correct bearing preload is reached; and it retains the nut better, because of the higher torque you can put on it.

Sonix

iTrader: (1)

Couldn'ta said it better myself. Just finished doing this a few days ago.
I stuck my pinion in the deep freeze in my garage, and set the bearings on top of my propane heater to get them toasty warm. Holy cow those got warm.
Anyway, that makes pressing them on a breeze.
I used a die grinder and sanding drum to make my trial bearings, but 6 of 1 half a dozen of the other.
The solid pinion spacer is ratech part number 4111, $20 off summit last I checked.