Final Drive Bearing Replacement

Ossaboy2867

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Jan 24, 2017
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92
Location
Wellsville NY
Warm main case slightly. Grease and install o ring on ring gear cover. Pack main case seal lip with grease also. Chill unit. When installing two main parts together, make sure gear teeth mesh together. This should drop right in with only the o ring offering resistance.
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Install bolts and torque to specified values.
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At this point when you try to turn the pinion gear to check your work, it will have a slight bind to it. The manual does not state how to fix this and it is a very simple thing to do. If anyone on here has ever changed a universal joint you know you have to seat the pressed bearing with a slight tap, otherwise it feels crunchy and wont move correctly. The same thing is going on with the gear case and needs a slight tap around cover to seat.
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If there is still a bind, it’s possible you do not have the ring gear assembly fully seated into removable cover.
 
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Ossaboy2867

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Jan 24, 2017
Messages
92
Location
Wellsville NY
A few more steps and you are almost complete. Install pinion gear coupling, torque and peen nut into groove. I also grease the flange of the nut and threads to obtain proper torque. (Sorry, no picture)
Next, install new driveshaft seal. Seriously this was the hardest thing to do without destroying it. Grease helps
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Grease seal od, install spring onto tip of pinion gear and install into coupling.
I used a seal driver I had made for harley sportster forks. I think a piece of pvc pipe could be used here? You get the idea...
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Final drive is now complete. Time to drink beer and shoot the shit.

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Ossaboy2867

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Wellsville NY
Thanks. Some of the other tools needed to remove all the parts I didnt show as they can all be bought. I need to make the tool for checking the lash in the gear set. Should be easy due to the manual showing the dimensions of the tool.
I didn’t do this part. I can tell by the feel it has the required .008 to .016 lash
 

Top Ten

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Aug 24, 2018
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105
Location
Rockwall, Texas
Wow! What a job. It all makes sense to you since you've done so much work like this before. This post make me wish my final drive never goes out; I don't have the experience or tools to do what you did and I doubt my local shop would be so precise in the process, either.

BTW, the last photo is appropriate; your wallet is still fat from all the money you saved doing it yourself.
 
B

ballisticexchris

Guest
Thank you so much for that detailed bearing/seal replacement procedure. That is really nice of you to show us how to rebuild the final drive unit. This kind of process cannot be found in the service manual. Hopefully this can be put up as a sticky in the tech section.
 

Ossaboy2867

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Joined
Jan 24, 2017
Messages
92
Location
Wellsville NY
Wow! What a job. It all makes sense to you since you've done so much work like this before. This post make me wish my final drive never goes out; I don't have the experience or tools to do what you did and I doubt my local shop would be so precise in the process, either.

BTW, the last photo is appropriate; your wallet is still fat from all the money you saved doing it yourself.
Thanks, Im glad you enjoyed the post.
 

Ossaboy2867

Active Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2017
Messages
92
Location
Wellsville NY
Thank you so much for that detailed bearing/seal replacement procedure. That is really nice of you to show us how to rebuild the final drive unit. This kind of process cannot be found in the service manual. Hopefully this can be put up as a sticky in the tech section.
Yeah if a moderator wants to do that Im ok with it. If anyone else has to do this and has questions to anything that didnt get answered in this post, let me know and I will try to help out where I can
 

RCinNC

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Aug 30, 2014
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2,816
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North Carolina
Massive respect for Ossaboy and his skill, that's for sure. I've been following this thread, and even made copies of his posts and photographs and turned them into pages for my service manual. That said, I think if this ever happened to me, I'd probably have to err on the side of caution and just remove the final drive myself and take it to a shop. Much like watching a horror movie, everything felt ok at first, maybe just an impeding sense of dread, and then things got really scary towards the end......
 

gunslinger_006

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May 21, 2016
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961
Location
Seattle, Washington
I concur. This is a job I might be able to do but is honestly over my head. I would prefer to take the diff to a really good shop and show them this thread!


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steve172

New Member
Joined
Sep 15, 2019
Messages
5
Location
Scotland, UK
Thanks for the useful threadd. I found this because my driveshaft is very stiff to turn and notchy. I suspect the pinion bearing.

Can you tell me, does the ring gear and bearings require to be removed to change the pinion bearings? I'm at the stage of fabricating the bearing retaining nut tool from a 55mm US Pro impact socket.
 

Ossaboy2867

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Joined
Jan 24, 2017
Messages
92
Location
Wellsville NY
Thanks for the useful threadd. I found this because my driveshaft is very stiff to turn and notchy. I suspect the pinion bearing.

Can you tell me, does the ring gear and bearings require to be removed to change the pinion bearings? I'm at the stage of fabricating the bearing retaining nut tool from a 55mm US Pro impact socket.
I know it's a bit late on the reply, but no you do not have to remove the ring gear to change the pinion bearings. I only did it because once I got in there, why not. I had looked up the parts and they were fairly cheap.
 
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