Pinion bearing

[ftpiercecracker1]

Front pinion bearing is toast. If I'm not mistaken this requires a full disassembly of the gear case correct? Which means going through the process of setting them up again, back lash, wear pattern and such correct?

 

Does a D30 require case preload or just pinion preload? That would require a case stretcher right?

 

Any good sources for a D30 or D44 master regear kit? It's a high pinion non disconnect, don't know if that matters. Can't remember the year specifically, but it's a later model D30, just before they changed to low pinion.

[ghetdjc320]

Shouldn’t require a case spreader. If all your changing is the pinion bearing than just keep the same shim stack thickness so you won’t have to mess with backlash or pinion depth. The only thing you would need to adjust is bearing preload which has nothing to do with your contact pattern. The carrier shims are inboard of the carrier bearing 99% of the time so they shouldn’t need to be adjusted.

[Gubachoo]

On 11/24/2020 at 5:46 AM, ghetdjc320 said:

Shouldn’t require a case spreader. If all your changing is the pinion bearing than just keep the same shim stack thickness so you won’t have to mess with backlash or pinion depth. The only thing you would need to adjust is bearing preload which has nothing to do with your contact pattern. The carrier shims are inboard of the carrier bearing 99% of the time so they shouldn’t need to be adjusted.

 

Second all of that. I get my gear stuff from east coast gear supply. good company and i had an order come messed up once and they overnighted me the right part with no questions. good company with great tech people. Overall not a terrible job, can be done with it still in the truck and like ghetdjc said, the carrier pops out and right back in without taking it apart. 

[gogmorgo]

Like was said, gear setup is unecessary if you’re only doing bearings and seals. Just keep track of where everything was, and put it all back exactly. You’ll want a press for the bearings, but all you should need to pop the carrier out is a prybar, maybe a rubber mallet to put it back in. Clean the case out really well so you don’t have chunks of bearing material floating around in there. Take a good look at the spider gears too. They like to wear out, lose chunks, etc., and they make a good excuse to put something fancier in there.

It probably goes without saying, but isn’t something you want to put off. If the pinion is loose and bouncing around it will wear a funky pattern into the gears and you could find yourself needing gears not too long down the road if you take care of it. I say this because it’s a thing I put off until I had time for a bigger job and then found myself needing to tear into it again within 3000 miles, this time to change everything.

[ghetdjc320]

In lieu of a press, I used my hydraulic jack and an appropriate size pipe. Just stick the pinion in the freezer and the bearing in the oven on 150. Then used the frame rail as the “press” plate.

[BeatCJ]

If you can't get use of your oven for "greasy car parts", you can use a heat gun blowing on the bearing. Just make sure you have it on a non-flammable surface. You can get quite a bit more expansion from heating than you can get contraction from cooling, so it an important step.