thunder550

iTrader: (70)

I think with 150,000 on the clock it's about time to overhaul the rear axle on my truck. I bought all the necessary bearings, gaskets, and seals, along with some synthetic gear oil. Just wondering if anyone has any pointers or tips or things to watch out for before I tear into this thing.

blown3qtr

It's pretty straight forward. Without a pinion depth gauge I always start with the original pinion shim. That seems to work pretty good. Just set all your preloads (don't forget to lube the bearings) and run a gear pattern. As long as you have a good gear pattern and you set all the bearing preloads and gear backlash you should be good to go.

Phantom&RedGoat2004

I've heard through the grapevine that posi's would actually respond better to a "mineral" (or "conventional" - I guess) gear oil rather than a synthetic. RP, I heard holds up to heat real well, and their 80w-90 is not a synthetic (and already has the posi additive), but you pay for the purple stuff. I put Mobile1 (and GM friction modifier) in my Yukon back-when, and had no negative side effects until I sold it 20k miles later. I still figured I'd pass on what's been mentioned at the skutlebutt in the recent oil debate.

thunder550

iTrader: (70)

Does that hold true for gear type posi's too? I wouldn't figure it would make a whole lot of difference since there are no clutches in the rear end.

vanillagorilla

iTrader: (1)

I'll be doing mine in a few weeks too. If you have a shop press, bearing splitter, magnetic base/dial indicator and all the various hand tools it should be alright. Since you're not swaping ratios shiming should be a walk in the park.

FWIW, I've always used non synthetics and Ford's friction modifier. Never had an issue with 3 different vehicles and 3 different types of rear ends.