rear end gear changes, How hard?

[junk]

Hey my 89 f-350 that I have currently all ripped apart has 3.55 gears in it. I would like to change the Dana 60 and 10.25 axles to 4.10 gears. I have used 4.10 gears for these rearends that I would put back in.

How hard are rearends to setup? From what I've read they can require a lot of time to get setup, but the work doesn't seem that difficult? I consider myself an above average wrench.

The 10.25 4.10 gears are in a housing, but the housing is in unknown condition. I would need to go through all the bearings and seals to make sure the axle is good. Makes me wonder if it would be easier to grab the gears and leave the housing?

The dana 60 4.10 gears came originally in this axle and I had them changed to 3.55 gears.

All the rearends would be out of the vehicles and easy to work on. I also have a press and dial indicator. I would need to buy an inch lb torque wrench.

Thanks,
Jeremy

 

[7.3shrk]

It is not that hard, just time consuming. If you are pantient, and use the reight tools, it should be no problem. Just be PATIENT. Take the time to make sure you have a good pattern on the gears. Dana axles are a pain to set up if you do not have the right tools. Spend the money and buy a set of set up bearings that slide on and off of the carrier. I forget what the carrier split is on the Danas, if it is at 4.10 or 4.56. Check into that before you tear everything apart and have more down time waiting for the parts.

Nick

 

[hesutton]

Like Nick said, the Dana will be a bigger pain than the sterling. The Dana shims between the bearing and the diff. That means you have to shim, press on the bearings, put it in the housing and then test the back lash, depth, and whatnot. To change the shims, you have to pull the whole thing and remove the carrier bearings and test again. On the sterling, you shim between the carrier (diff) bearings and the housing......much faster/simpler to adjust your shims.

You just need time and patience. The crush sleeve must be replaced everytime. If you over do it on the pinion yoke, you will need another. Take extra time with that step.

Heath

 

[oldmisterbill]

The 10.25 Ford Sterling is the easiest rear end I have worked on.I wouldn't remove the housing to work on it.Most of the time the same shims will work when reassembling it to keep the gear mesh correct.SO make sure that every thing you remove is saved in the origional location.I also feel it would be hard to find a better gear set then the 10.25.Mine is old with many miles 500,000 estimated.the carrier is worn where the outer spyder gear goes through the carrier (the one that the drivers axle slide into)I have another carrier that will go in to replace that the gears amazingly have held up fine-I will reuse my ring and pinion set with the new carrier,but not the spyders. If I can be of any help call me at 918-485-3567 I will be glad to go through the process with you.
The Dana is a PITA. Mr Bill

 

[Hillbilly]

Spend the money and buy a set of set up bearings that slide on and off of the carrier. I forget what the carrier split is on the Danas, if it is at 4.10 or 4.56.

Nick

Don't waste your money on "setup" bearings. Just grab an old pair and take a brake hone to them. You want them to be snug, but able to be removed with a mallet/rubber faced hammer. Some like them loose, I prefer them the way I described.
Ford 60's don't have a carrier break if I recall, it's all the other LP diffs that do. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[greythorn3]

not hard at all just take your time and use your diegrinder to enlarge a set of old bearings to slip on and off to get the shims right.

Ray

 

[typ4]

On the dana pinion there will be a + or - mark and a number, you can set your pinion depth shim by that calculation, I have a chart here in a manual., I went to 355 and used the original carrier shims and got lucky with backlash. try that first and go from there. The rear is a piece of cake, I would find a professional motor manual for truck and van or a ford factory manual and it will walk you right thru it.

 

[Hillbilly]

http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/Gear_Setup/

This is a very well written write up from a 4x4 board I frequent daily

 

[BigRigTech]

I did both my front and rear diff's from 4.10's to 3.55's (used gears), the Sterling was a joke....Piece of cake. I re-used the original 4.10 shims and crush sleeve. The D60 was harder as mentioned, I got my pattern to where it looked like it was riding in it's old groove and my backlash was ok but I think I have a tiny bit of bearing noise (atleast we think it's bearing noise) up front when in 4wd. Might just be the pinion bearing. I didn't change any of the bearings as they all looked ok. I'll run them for a bit, drain the oil and see if I have any issues to deal with. So far the 10.25 is quiet as a church mouse, I just did that swap Saturday afternoon.

 

[junk]

Sounds like I am going to be regearing a couple rear ends. Thanks for all the help there. I will be posting/calling with questions as I start in on these. Currently we have too much cold and snow going on now to round up the parts and get the shop heated up.

Thanks,
Jeremy

 

[oldmisterbill]

http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/Gear_Setup/

That is the absolut best explaination AI have seen.I was getting ready to post pics today of my sterling when it was apart.It is not necessary with this site now. Can anybody tell me how to save it as a document-not a website ?

 

[oregon-mike]

http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/billavista/Gear_Setup/

That is the absolut best explaination AI have seen.I was getting ready to post pics today of my sterling when it was apart.It is not necessary with this site now. Can anybody tell me how to save it as a document-not a website ?

I saved it as a pdf. I tried to attach it here but it exceeds the 244(ish)K limit (it's about 700K is all)....

Mike

 

[Joe Mc]

In Opera when you go to "save as" there is a save as type drop-down, if you choose "HTML file with images" the images will be saved in a sub directory. The other file type choice is "Web Archive" and that saves it as a single file including the images, but not the larger images that the page links to. Web Archive is also available in Internet Explorer.

I used the the "HTML with Images: so I could also save the large images of the patterns in the image directory, it was only 4 extra images that I expected to need larger.