I'm doing the best I can there. I'm working alone in my garage after the wife goes to bed, and I have only two hands/arms! Usually I hold one side yoke with a strap wrench and force the clutches to slip while turning the pinion with the other arm. It's quite the juggling act.

Gary, I'll email some pics to you- these will be large photographs from my digital SLR. Probably 3-4 emails. Unless I hear back from you before hand I'll try tonight to swap out the pinion gear and find a new side shim combination that gives me .0050" minimum backlash and post up the resulting pattern.

 

Hold the pinion with the strap wrench and turn the RG by the RG bolts. Apply enough force to cause a drag on the pinion to load the gears.

 

add some wd40 to thin out your paste.

 

I guess I'm stuck for at least a day since I don't have another crush sleeve and I can't find anything locally. Unfortunately, that virtually guarantees that by the time I have everything set back up and have a pattern to share, nobody will be available to critique it until Monday.

 

LOL - the exact same thing happened to me, and I had to wait until the weekend was over until I could get a new one!

 

OK guys, I don't have my crush sleeve(s) yet but I figured I could go ahead and set up my pattern. I'll just have to do a final pattern check before I can call it "done".

Iteration 21-
Pinion shim: 0.0226"
L shim: 0.2290"
R shim: 0.2452"
Backlash range: 0.0050" - 0.0095"

Yes, I even measured backlash on every tooth again. I feel better if I know every one is "in control". I'm a definite candidate for DPF.

Here's my setup for loading the pinion while I rotate the ring gear:



Here are the coast patterns:


Drive patterns (deep, but this was expected, right?):

 

bump so Mike and Gary will find this thread again!

 

The coast looks a little deep now, but it's hard for me to see it clear enough.

Here is a set I used White on, this is what you're shooting for.





You don't need the crush sleeve to set the pattern, in fact I leave it until I know where I am and then final install it. The pattern should not change at that point if you keep eveything the same.

If you get to the point where the shim is only 002 different you're going to have to make a judgement call on the best shim. Check the paste and amount of load on the gears, the paste can be deceiving, when you get to where you like the pattern like now, mist some WD40 on them and then rotate, no load, by a side yoke using a setup tool you can make to bolt to a yoke. You may find the pattern cleans up nice to give you an accurate picture.

Now I have about 12 hours into the 12 bolt 373 diff I'm building and only have the steel cap machine fit!

 

Thank you, Gary. Believe me I understand that I have to spend some real time to get this right. I have at least 50 hours in this so far.

Honestly, I thought I had it with the 0.020" shim, which just goes to show I don't know what I'm looking for.

Here are some 100% crops. Maybe it will be easier to interpret. Unfortunately, the WD-40 didn't make the 0.020" shim pictures any clearer.

0.020" shim:




With 0.022" shim:

 

I took one more with the WD-40 added. This is with the 0.022" pinion shim.

 

Looks like the 022 is the best. You can see the pattern appears deep on one tooth and high on another. You're going to have to go by the best of the group. I think you'll be ok with the last ones you posted.

 

All right, thanks again. I'll put the crush sleeve in when I get back home from work and run a final pattern.

Like you and Mike said, these gears sure aren't what they used to be. GM really had their act together.

Thanks!

 

That looks much better. Your pattern has moved off the toe. Go with this set-up. Now you need to take it apart and clean everything extremely well. Take your time setting the pinion preload. It won't be easy crushing the sleeve which makes it very easy to have too much preload. Be sure to put sealer on the splines of the pinion flange.
Mike

 

Awesome, thank you.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness on these things for sure, just like an engine build. Thanks for the reminder!

I had been driving hard to have this thing ready for this weekend- I've arranged for several of my friends to come help me install this and the rest of the rear suspension, and I really didn't want to have to reschedule that "car guy party".

However, we had a death in the family this morning- my brother-in-law passed away and was found apparently just as I was writing the above reply (about 7:00 AM). His health had been declining for the last six years, especially after his stroke 4 years ago, but we had no idea it was coming right now.

There apparently isn't a lot I can do to help the family but my schedule is far from certain. I'll post up the final pattern as soon as I get it.

I can't thank you guys enough for your help with this. I would have been lost- and would have made grave mistakes- without your help. Thank you. If I ever run into you in person, I owe each of you a nice cold brewski!

 

I was able to break away after all, and I got as much done tonight as would have been possible under any circumstances.

I got the differential torn down, cleaned up the pinion and the housing as best I could (the outer pinion bearing and pinion seal were still installed from when I thought I was final installing with the first pinion shim), added the new crush sleeve, and reinstalled the pinion with #2 on the splines, and engine assembly lube on the seal and the yoke seal surface. Like Mike said, sealer gets applied to the splines- I like to apply it sparingly to both the yoke and the shaft so that it is somewhat more uniformly smeared the whole length of engagement (just a personal thing I guess).





I had already used the new pinion nut once but I didn't have another one to use. To make sure it didn't come loose I applied a little Loctite 271 to the pinion threads before torqing everything into place.



Not so easy to do by yourself! Here's how I set things up to get it done:



I "snuck up" on the final setting. Final torque to rotate pinion (sliding friction, not static): 22 in-lbs (with seal).

I was interrupted at this point since it was time to take my son to his first tee ball practice. Time to protect it from dust before leaving:



Once I got back, I cleaned up the differential carrier carefully and re-assembled with extra 0.005" preload shims in the shim packs. Spindle oil was applied to the bearings and the bearing cap bolts were torqued to 65 ft-lbs (I'm using 180,000 PSI bolts) with Loctite 271. Here are the final patterns:

Coast:


Drive:


I already had the side yokes ground to .005" end play by a local industrial machine shop I take a lot of company business to, so all I had to do at this point was install the new Torrington bearings and new seals and slip the side yokes in place.

I noticed in either Gary's paper or Stinger's write-up that it's recommended to let the Permatex #2 dry overnight before filling with oil, so I'm going to let it sit a day or two. I hope to install it on Thursday or Friday night anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem.

 

Hi, it's an old post but i have same order of backlash variations on my dana 44 dif regeared to 3.07 with motive ring and pinion. I would be interessed to know if you are encountered noise or wear issues since you install this gear ?
THanks, have a good day.
Stéphane.

 

Lets start a new thread asking your new question after 12 years. You can include a link to this thread for reference.