Going to look at a rear axle today UPDATE: It's in my backyard!

[ccarley]

Thanks Danny!

Here's my gallery:
http://carleynet.net/familypictures/Suburban

For the cool photos, check the Usal Beach albums

Clay

 

[ccarley]

Well, Sunday was spent at my buddy Adam's place to fix the axle.

I ordered the whole gear installation kit from Randy's Ring & Pinion, which included pinion bearings, carrier bearings, shims, 2 crush sleeves, pinion seal, new pinion nut, and cover gasket. Oh yeah, marking compound & a brush too. After about 4 hours of working continuously, we were done.

The larger pinion bearing (towards the gear, not the driveshaft) was toast. The cage had rubbing marks on it, and it almost fell apart. We replaced all the bearings anyway, even the carrier bearings, and re-set the backlash. We also tied the fly-weights on the gov-loc shut, so that they can't fly open & lock on the street anymore. Kind of a bummer, but it's best that it does not lock.

End result: no more howling! Woot! It's super quiet now, and I'm stoked. The gears looked fine too, even after driving it for a week with the loose pinion.

I guess the next step is to look for a locker for this axle.

Anyway, I hope this thread may help anyone else out who is looking to do the same axle swap. Everyone usually goes with the 14-bolt, but it's really overkill for my intended purpose.

Clay

 

[82355]

You say that now, but if you blow this one up I bet you will change your tune. It is hard to say, sometimes the 10 bolts take a lot of abuse and live, and sometimes they blow up under very little stress.

My question is, what did you do for the brakes? I have installed a 12 bolt and made the emergency brakes work with the 12 bolt brakes. The hole is larger than the cable, causing it not to snap in place. All that I did was pull the cable through the backing plate, and then use a flat washer with a hole the same size as the cable, and slide it over the cable until it snapped in place. The washer then held the cable tight against the backing plate.

Martin

 

[pauly383]

I know a simple solution to brake swapping in these situations ...... pull the c-clips , slide out the axles , then undo every tab on the old axle , pull the brakes whole and complete , hang them under rig with bungees , then slide new axle under and bolt the whole old brakes on .

I never even bled mine after going 10 t0 12 , just used the 10 bolt brakes as is and completely assembled . eight backing plate bolts

 

[ccarley]

Martin,

Indeed I kept my same brakes. They bolted right up, no problem, and I also kept my steel lines.

I found a bleeder screw that was plugged up though. Of course, it was Sunday evening at that point... but Autozone was still open. I was able to get a box of random bleeder screws for $10, and it's a good thing too; I have 2 different sizes left & right. I'm pretty sure it's been plugged up for a while, my brakes have never felt better!

Clay

 

[82355]

A plugged bleeder screw won't affect anything other than trying to bleed the brake. Generally and o-ring pick and a little compressed air will clear out any bleeder screw if you can't get to a new one.

Martin