Where my serious mechanic br/o/s at? This is a long question but I'm only asking because google didn't tell me what I want to know.
I'm rebuilding the Ford 8.8 axle under my Wrangler after a catastrophic carrier failure. Basically I removed a lot of the carrier from the housing with a magnet. I'm replacing everything in it and got the new bearing races tapped in a while ago. I took the old pinion bearings and used a sanding drum on a Dremel to open up the I.D. so they'll slide on and off the pinion instead of pressing on, thus I can take them on and off quickly and use them to get the pinion depth set up. Now I bought a new set of Ford Racing 4.56 r&p's for this and a Ratech Pinion Depth tool to help get the depth set. I have the pinion held into place without a crush sleeve and the pinion nut tightened down enough to give some rotation resistance. The tool is placed against the end of the pinion head with the arm resting against the axle tube face. You then stick a caliper through the hole and measure the distance to the surface where the carrier bearing race goes. With a little arithmetic, you are supposed to be able to calculate the pinion depth very closely (within a few thousandths) and determine how much shimming, if any, is needed.
What I've run into is this.. I've got run-out in the pinion head. I have no idea if this is normal or acceptable and don't know whether I should proceed. I gently cleaned up the face of the pinion head with ultra fine sandpaper to make sure there were no high spots before putting it in. I placed the tool up tight against the face and began to take the measurements. I rotated the head numerous times and measured to make sure it was the same every time, what I found was that the measurements varied by at least .030" I repeated this several times to make sure and got the same result each time. In an attempt to see the run-out, I backed the nut off just enough to let the gear spin freely and then spun it by hand as fast as I could. Based on the shiny face, I could see a bit of side to side movement at the tips of the teeth, but don't see it anywhere but the face. It's almost as if the whole gear runs true but the face is not perfectly perpendicular. If that were the case it wouldn't have any effect on the performance of the gears.
Basically my question is this. Should this be considered a big red flag that indicates a possible problem with the gears? If not is there another way to easily determine the pinion depth, possibly based on the old gear? It was a different brand but had a .030" shim on it. If that won't work, do I just bite the bullet and move on with the install to the point where I can use marking compound to check the pattern and determine if the depth needs adjusted from there?
Brandon Wood
How foolish of me to think there were mechanics on Veeky Forums >what was left of the stock TeacLok carrier
Ian Morales
If someone on Veeky Forums was a serious mechanic they wouldn't answer you as the last thing you want to do after solving problems all day and answering questions is do it more, but for free
Christian Collins
Oh come on now, surely there are nice people here. Right? Nice people? On Veeky Forums? Fuck who am I kidding, you're right.
Logan Jones
bumbreaker is just a faggot anyway.
You'll probably have better luck posting to forums that have members who know their shit. I think ericthecarguy did a rebuild on an 8.8"... You might try on those forums. Or even the HAMB.
Tyler Harris
If I were you I would just call Currie or another rear end specialist on Monday morning. You aren't going to get good info from any forum because even people that build cars as hobbyists rarely build rear ends and haven't seen enough of them to know what to look for when there's an issue
Asher Edwards
>nobody can ever do this unless they're a professional!!!!!!11 >HOBBYISTS ARE STUPID!!!
See, it's this elitist attitude of yours which makes people think you're a faggot.
OP, buy a shop manual on ford diffs. The more specific the better. Or do as I said at There's still some old farts on the HAMB who would know how to troubleshoot your problem.
Dylan Williams
Nice, just pulled up his channel. Truth be told I'm not sure if I've ever watched a vid of his before but there are a lot for the 8.8 on his channel I'll have to watch I was kind of afraid of that. I did enough reading and research that I felt comfortable taking this project along so long as everything went according to plan. I may try to get in contact with a guy at my job. There are over 500 employees in our facility and he's one that I've never really talked to, only heard about, but I'm told one of his previous jobs was installing gears at a Ford dealership for 8 years. He did one for another coworker and I hear he's legit.
Julian Russell
I've rebuilt the rear end in the corvette but it was an entirely different animal than this
