This is the rear
diff on my
1982 GMC 1 ton.
It's a
14 bolt full floater.
When I pulled the cover off the other day to change the fluid.... This vehicle is new to me....
I discovered some bearing parts
down here in the bottom on the magnet. That was pretty scary....
but what I discovered was pilot bearing
or also called the straddle bearing that fits on the tip of the pinion....
its way back up in here.... that's the actual
tip of the pinion... I've already removed the damaged
bearing outside/race
but all that all those bearing rollers were gone
just leaving the race. They fell down in here
down to the bottom and attached to this magnet.
I'm going to be replacing that bearing right now. In order to get the
pinion carrier out, you need to remove the drive shaft.
This the front of the driveshaft on my truck.
Just make sure that you mark the shaft
and on the truck side so that you can get it aligned
exactly the same way when you reassemble. That will help prevent
vibration when you put it back together. This is the other side of the drive shaft,
the pinion side. Same thing here, just
mark it so you get it back in the same spot rotationally
and then remove the four bolts
on the retainers and then you should be able to slide the drive shaft forward
and get the drive shaft out. It's pretty straight forward.
After you get the driveshaft off this is what it looks like.
Don't mess with the center pinion nut.
For our purposes we don't want to take that off and mess with all of
the shim set up and everything like that. Just remove the six
carrier bolts around the outside.
Make sure you mark the carrier and housing
with a marker or a punch so you know which direction to get back in.
There are also either shims or a shim between the carrier and housing.
Here's one on mine. It's very important to
to get that back in there when you put it back together.
Don't bend it and make sure everything is clean.
Here is the pinion and pinion carrier.
You can see the
main bearings are in there and the tip of the pinion is where the
new bearing goes. Here's the new
bearing. It slips on there pretty easily.
You do you install it in the rear end first
before putting the pinion in.
Here is a shot with the pinion and carrier removed.
I have also already taken the old bearing
race. It's hard to see but at the 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions
there are some cut-outs
and that helps you bang out that old bearing race.
It is a little difficult but I did this with the axle still in the truck.
It just takes
little bit of time. I used a
socket extension to get back there
and knock it out. Here's the pinion side.
Again, I've got the old race already taken out
but you can see what it looks like with no bearing.
The new pilot bearing does install and come out through the
pinion side of the rear end.
Here's what the new pilot bearing looks like after it's installed.
When you tap it in, make sure and use something that
drives it from the outer race. You don't want to be pounding on
the rollers and make sure you get to seated all the way.
This is what it should look like after you get it all back together.
A brand new bearing in there to support the
tip of the pinion.