If you have ever built a 9" Ford third member, the hardest part is getting the crush sleeve crushed to allow the proper pre-load on the pinion bearings. You need a really hard hitting impact wrench with a really big compressor to get it done, and most of us don't have that luxury at home. This is my solution: I built a simple fixture that would hold the pinion,bearings, crush sleeve, bearing retainer and yoke together as an assembly so that I could tighten the pinion nut and crush the sleeve for proper pre-load. The fixture is a simple piece of heavy 3/8" thick angle iron that is drilled to allow the yoke to bolt to it, there is also a hole bored in it that will allow a socket to tighten the pinion nut. Mine is bolted to an "I" beam that I use to straighten out rearend housings. The "I" beam is bolted to the side of my old Bradford lathe. Whatever you bolt it to, it has to be very sturdy as it has to take some abuse. A trip to a local swap meet turned up a heavy duty 1 1/16" 3/4" drive socket and a socket adapter. The heavy duty socket is needed as 1/2" drive sockets and breaker bars will usually shatter, ask me how I know. The socket adapter had a 7/8" hole in it. A trip to a boneyard turned up a 7/8" torsion bar which I cut to 36" in length. The torsion bar will be the lever that turns the socket, it is hardened, and it will not break or bend. The whole pinion assembly is bolted to the fixture, and the pinion nut it tightened until the proper pre-load is acheived. I use my body weight to slowly push the torsion bar and the sleeve is crushed with ease. The 36" length easily allows the sleeve to crush. No more broken sockets, breaker bars and bench mounted vices!!
i use my press.run the pinion nut down with your impact.set the pinion support on the press with the pinion gear pointing up/ yoke down.slowly press the everything together.checking the load as you go.when it feels right .release presure off the press.loc-tite and tighten nut.
......or for less than 20 bucks and a little set-up time buy a solid spacer and shim kit and be done with the crush sleeve forever. No crush sleeve means no issues with loosing pinion bearing pre-load and you can swap yolks and pinion seals with ease without having to pull the center section out of the axle housing. Great idea though when you really need to just use the crush sleeve. -Bigchief.
I'd bet you could probably take a 3/8 length of angle iron and do that in the car by bolting one end to the yoke and vise gripping the other end to the frame, no?
You should be able to dial in the rolling torque for the pinion bearings if you want it right, so no this method technically doesn't work because your supposed to set rolling torque with only the pinion bearings loaded (no ring gear, diff, axles, etc). However, if you just want it together you can get it reasonably close if you've got a good idea of what it should feel like when properly torqued/loaded. I may have seen this done once or twice.... It takes some experience to get it 'close enough/right' to live and takes almost no experience to cook the bearings and/or destroy the ring and pinion. -Bigchief.
I DON'T use a crush sleeve, and have had NO probs in 15 years since a very experienced builder shared this with me. I've posted before, with much criticism, and I still maintain much success.
Me too. I remember LOTS of controversy. Now that I think about that, I'll unsubscribe to this thread now because i DON'T CARE TO GO THROUGH IT AGAIN
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