CheepComanche Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 While I was under my Jeep assessing other issues I noticed that my pinion yoke moves up and down. I think the nut is just loose and needs to be tightened up. Can I just tighten it or is this a more complicated fix? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghetdjc320 Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 Try tightening and see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drahcir495 Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 Hey CheapComanche. Not that it makes a difference (axles have pretty much the same set-up process) what axle are you working on? Having a loose pinion is obviously not good. A few things could’ve happened to cause this but the “why” is not important now. The only problem with just tightening the nut back down is the pinion is set to a certain preload. This is achieved with the use of a crush sleeve in the set up process. You are just going to get it close as best you can. Here is what I suggest doing, but start budgeting for a bearing overhaul at the minimum. Take off the pinion nut and clean the treads with brake clean. Put red locktite inside of the nut and run it down until the play is out of it. Then bump the nut and keep an eye on it. Not really much you can do at this point. If you are close to The Tampa Bay area I could help you rebuild the axle. Hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gogmorgo Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 Is it making noise? Best case scenario you can try tightening it and hoping it solves it. You’re going to want around 250ft-lbs. Red loctite on it absolutely. But at minimum I would pull it and the yoke off and change the pinion seal. The extra movement in the pinion will wreck it. RTV on the yoke splines when it goes back together. There’s two common reasons the pinion would be loose. The first is because the seal was changed and the nut was reused without loctite on it. Its a distorted thread lock nut and spinning it off and on will wear down the threads so it quits locking. The second is because the pinion bearings are worn and loose. Which usually means there’s enough metal floating around the axle that the other bearings won’t last much longer. That’s not to scare you. Its very possible you can just tighten the nut and it’ll be fine. But you might also want to change the oil just to make sure there’s not a ton of glitter in it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drahcir495 Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 Very good points. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CheepComanche Posted February 3 Author Share Posted February 3 Its a dana 35 that was rebuilt and swapped to 4.10 gears a little over a year ago. I wasn't the one who did the rebuild so I don't have any further info on the diff. I will probably put Loctite on the nut and tighten it down as its not making any noise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gogmorgo Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 I'd be curious if there's any warranty left to be had from whoever did the rebuild. Should've had a new nut on it which makes me wonder if the crush sleeve was crushed properly. It takes quite a bit of torque to crush them down, especially when you're also torquing a distorted nut down, although I suppose the pinion depth could have been trial and errored a few times, wearing out the nut. But if there's still some wiggle in it after you tighten the nut down that's probably what's going on, insufficient crush. Ideally you'd want to pull the shafts and carrier to confirm you've got the correct rolling torque on the pinion, and that it rolls nicely without any notchiness to it. But if you have a torque wrench that goes to somewhere in the neighbourhood of 250ft-lbs and set it to the max, you don't really run the risk of crushing the sleeve down further than you want. The handful I've done have taken well over 300lb-ft to budge the sleeve at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghetdjc320 Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 The crush sleeve should have already been set. Tighten the pinion nut to spec and see if you still have play. It shouldn’t have come loose but more importantly, don’t keep driving it if it’s loose. Tighten it then pull the cover to inspect the gears and oil but don’t over tighten and crush the crush sleeve further Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZJeff Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 On 2/3/2024 at 10:40 PM, ghetdjc320 said: The crush sleeve should have already been set. Tighten the pinion nut to spec and see if you still have play. It shouldn’t have come loose but more importantly, don’t keep driving it if it’s loose. Tighten it then pull the cover to inspect the gears and oil but don’t over tighten and crush the crush sleeve further I agree, but I would reverse the order of steps: 1. pull diff cover, and inspect fluid for signs of significant metallic content. If found, get someone who knows differentials to remove/inspect/repair source of metallic content. 2. if no metallic content found, replace pinion seal, and retorque pinion nut (with Loctite on threads) to 250+ ft. lbs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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