What's new
CK5
Register an account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members.

Preload on a 14ff?

78Suburban

78Suburban

1/2 ton status
Joined
Jul 4, 2005
Posts
2,609
Reaction score
0
Location
Georgia
As some of you know, I just put my welded 144 carrier back in. I had marked the collars and turned them in 2 turns each when I pulled the carrier.. Now when I back them out two turns each, it gets hard to turn the collars with my punch toward the end of the last turn.

Some people say a 14ff is pretty easy, and you can just do it by feel. So how much play would I ideally have? With the axle shafts out, holding the yolk tight in my hand, I can probably make my carrier turn about 2 or 3 milimeters.. Not very much at all. Is my preload set too tight so that it will chew up my gears?

thanks,
James
 
Its hard to say. If you dont have a dial indicator, try running some grease on the gears so we can see the pattern. Gear marking paint/grease works good, but you might be able to get an acceptable image using a thick grease.

Post up some pics and I can try and help you. Just did this about a year ago.
 
Oh, as for the bearing preload, just get it good and tight. Too tight is probably gonna be better than not tight enough.
 
randy88k5 said:
Its hard to say. If you dont have a dial indicator, try running some grease on the gears so we can see the pattern. Gear marking paint/grease works good, but you might be able to get an acceptable image using a thick grease.

Post up some pics and I can try and help you. Just did this about a year ago.
Click to expand...

Cool, I can try this... I've got some green all purpose grease in the grease gun, would that work? should I just cake a big chunk on a large portion of the ring gear, put the t case in neutral, and spin it over once so that the pinion mashes down all the grease? I guess it'll be ok to do it without the shafts in the truck, so that I don't have to jack it up?

thanks,
James
 
randy88k5 said:
Oh, as for the bearing preload, just get it good and tight. Too tight is probably gonna be better than not tight enough.
Click to expand...

Yeah, bearing preload is all I'm worried about, havnen't touched the pinion... I was just worried about it being too tight.. but its definitely good and tight.. should I just throw the bearing caps back on and call it a day?
 
I tried red lithium grease before, and I didnt get a very good image on the teeth. Try it a few times, see if you can see where the teeth meet eachother in the pattern.

I would say a gaint glob would be too much. Really just want a smear or so, but depending on the thickness of the grease used, that might change a little.
 
Yeah, good enough for now. If youre lucky, you have a good pattern when you get the pinion in, and yep, call it a day.

If you need to adjust the backlash, you gotta move those adjusters one way or another. You shoud be really close though if you followed those marks.

I changed my carrier for an ARB carrier, so, those marks were more of "guidelines" for me...
 
randy88k5 said:
Yeah, good enough for now. If youre lucky, you have a good pattern when you get the pinion in, and yep, call it a day.

If you need to adjust the backlash, you gotta move those adjusters one way or another. You shoud be really close though if you followed those marks.

I changed my carrier for an ARB carrier, so, those marks were more of "guidelines" for me...
Click to expand...

The pinion is already in... All I did was just pull the carrier to have it lincoln locked... my whole worry was that I didn't remember those bearing preload adjusters being hard to break loose, but I had to turn them TIGHT to get them to go back where the marks were...
 
Since those collars were hard to turn and just didn't feel quite right, I'm gonna try to pick a tube of this up, hopefully the parts store will have it

http://www.midwayautosupply.com/detailedproductdescription.asp?9421

Then I'll get some good pictures of my gear pattern.. If something is off bad enough to chance chewing up my rear end, the gear pattern should point me in the right direction, correct?

thanks,
James
 
Should use gear marking goop, looks like mustard.
..........hmmm has the same consistency as mustard...
...time for a snack?
Lots of starters have been replaced due to the customer complaint of "intermitent start", when actually the hot cable was loose from thermal cycling.
Nowadays at least they actually install a new starter.
I be willing to bet mustard would work just fine, worth a try.:D
 
78Suburban said:
Cool, I can try this... I've got some green all purpose grease in the grease gun, would that work? should I just cake a big chunk on a large portion of the ring gear, put the t case in neutral, and spin it over once so that the pinion mashes down all the grease? I guess it'll be ok to do it without the shafts in the truck, so that I don't have to jack it up?

thanks,
James
Click to expand...
I used mustard for gear marker last time. It worked killer.
 
Lol, that's awesome.. That's why I love ck5, find out things I would have NEVER thought of.. I was eating mustard on my corn dog just a few minutes ago..

I guess next chance I get (saturday probably), I'll throw some mustard on 4 or 5 teeth, jack the back up, put the t case in neutral, and spin her over once.. :D


The blue goop I linked to earlier was suggested by Billa Vista, said that blue worked better on used gears, and yellow showed up better on new gears.. But the mustard will definnitely be worth a try :bow:
 
Its pretty hard to get your bearing preload too tight with carriers that use a screw type adjuster. If your using a 12 inch spanner wrench or so dont be afraid to give it a good little crank. Just run the adjusters back to the same way they were when it came out and it will be fine. It may be necessary to put some oil on the threads of the adjusters and just a little oil on the mating surfaces between the adjusters and the backside of the bearing races so that way theyre easier to turn. I would worry more about making sure the gear pattern is as close as possible to the original setup as possible. With these 14 bolts I find the backlash on a used gearset is normally quite large.
 
Never knew mustard worked, thats good to know considering its only about 1.19 a bottle. Run a pattern, thats the only way to know :thumb: I'm not sure about your area, but there is a place called rentalex that has all sorts of weird tools, you can rent a good dail gauge there for arround 15 bucks(dont use HF stuff) to check the backlash
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest Posts

Top Bottom