A neighbor has replaced all the bearings in his 9" Ford axle but cant get the new crush sleeve to crush. He asked me but I dont know either. How is it done?
It takes about 400 ft lbs of torque to start the crush. I put the pinion yoke in a vise and use a 3 foot snapon 1/2 breaker bar with a 8 foot cheater pipe and start walking with it. Been doing it this way 50+ years without problems. just have to be careful not to go to tight once it starts turning and crushing the sleeve. I set mine up with 28 inch Lbs. of rotation torque once crushed and that has worked for me.
With everything properly lubed, the seal, the bearings the nut and the threads on the pinion, get it all ready and tighten the nut. I made an angle iron bar about six feet long that bolts to the flange, then use a pipe on the longest flex handle you have. You can feel the nut turn, then you can feel it stop. When it stops, remove the hardware and check the rotating torque with a torque wrench. If you need more, go very gently and slow to gain more preload. Its not as hard as it sounds.
It should take 175 ft-lbs of torque to correctly preload the crush sleeve. This is a very handy article. http://www.ford-trucks.com/article/idx/9/065/article/Ford_9_Inch_RebuildGear_Setup.html
Very carefully, with a big-*** wrench. As already stated, it takes a lot of torque to crush the sleeve, but a tiny movement to go from too loose to too tight.
Yea, but it takes a lot more than that to get them to "break" on a new sleeve. I usually put them in a press and keep adding pressure until I see them give and move just a little. Then you can put them on the pinion and they will work right. And it's not just 9" Fords, most crush sleeves are like that. If it's for a performance application, I usually use a spacer and not a crush sleeve. Larry T
I thought of that after I posted. It takes a little more time to set up, but a novice is less likely to screw up than a crush sleeve. Add or remove shims till the preload is correct, then torque down a new pinion nut.
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. Yes you can use a solid spacer, but I have used the lowly crush sleeve for years with no problems in all kinds of applications. 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 ***embly 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 ***embly 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 or bench mounted vices!!
Well, since we are sharing secrets... I use the crush sleeve to get the diamension for the solid spacer ! ***emble the pinion without the seal, use the 450ft.lb i/r impact to crush the sleeve and finish with big breaker bar. ( holding with the fixture similar to Drivem's ) When you have the proper preload...dissasemble and measure the crush sleeve. Re***emble with the solid spacer (at the same diamension as the crush) and recheck preload. The solid kit comes with several small shims to get it right.For some reason the solid spacer is usually a few thou. different than the crush (spring back maybe ??) When it comes out right, take it apart one last time and install the seal. The seal adds a little drag, thats why we do this step last. Dave
Go with what Ray said.....he has you covered...... The trick is to put a tool on the yoke and torque it......I have a stand for doing it........ If your under the car, a big pipe wrench will work, then torque it as high as your torque wrench will go, then put on your torque-o-meter, finish the job with a big ratchet and a cheater pipe. You can get one for a few dollars at the autoparts store......just tell them what your doing and they'll help you out..........
Ditch the crush sleeve. Unless you drive it like grandma. The sleeve can collapse under load and screw up your gear pattern. You don't want to see what that looks like.
No. 1 How is the crush sleeve gonna collapse any with Timken bearings seated in the races and holding them apart. If it collapses any more, you've got bad bearing problems. No. 2 How is a collapsed sleeve gonna be any worse than no sleeve at all. Larry T
hay RAY...this is why i love h.a.m.b. all of these gents are correct. but my fave is DRIVE UM. that man has his WHAT? together. but again ALL of these systems will work. call me POP...or the old fart!
Larry, I thought the same way as you for many years. We broke many 9" gears in our race cars and just kinda wrote it off to abuse..Here is how I figured it out.. About 25 years ago , I was repairing a large (12') rototiller that had a long shaft (12',6" ! ) that was supported on either end by large tapered roller bearings.. This thing was huge. The specs called for .0015 end play. YUP 1.5 thousands! Prelube , cold....the only way to set this mother up was to smack it back and forth with a bfh on one end and a dial indicator on the other end.. You guessed it...SOLID SPACERS... Anyway, fast forward to our 9" stuff....I believe that if you could accurately measure the endplay on the pinion it would be very close to .0015 ( cold, and prelubed ). The bearings grow and tighten up when they build some heat in service. ( kinda like wheel bearings, slightly loose when cold...just right warm ?? ) If the crush sleeve experiances a shock IE: clutch dropping drag race type starts or in my case contact with another car or wall under power, the inherent nature is to crush some more ! Many, many times I have had the dreaded whine 2 or 3 races later..I feel that once the preload is lost then it is an ever increasing problem each time the throttle is cycled on and off. I have eliminated 95 % of this type problem by using the solid spacer. I will not build a 9" with a crush sleeve. JMO.. Dave
Dumprat & Dave, I'll plead to being a dummy here. I was reading the post as leaving the crush sleeve completely out (I've seen it done), not replacing it with spacers. Sorry bout that. But, just something to think about. If you set your spacers up by pinion drag, where is the drag coming from if you still have end play? Larry T
As you might tell from my last post, I have thought about this a bunch (my wife would say obsessed about it ! ) I believe the drag is produced by the friction of the FEW rollers in contact with the races. If ALL of the rollers (even lubed up ) were in contact IE : no end play, it would have far more than the recommended 28 inch/lbs of drag. (And tear stuff up real quick, cuz the bearings need the clearance to grow in service.) Imo, just the seal adds another 15 to 20 inch/lbs drag.. If you really think ( obsess ??) about it.. If you do this with the pinion vertical, you have all the rollers from 1 bearing touching the race...Horizontal, maybe 1/2 the rollers from both bearings touching the races... See what I mean ?? Too much thinking...LOL ! Dave
Dave, We're getting kind of off topic here, but some interesting points to think about. I still don't know if I'll give you any end play in the pinion shaft, but I will give you deflection. LOL And I DO use spacers in race car applications instead of crush sleeves, so I'll agree that I think the spacer is more stable than the sleeve. I wonder if there is any "spring" or memory to the sleeve. I'll bet there is. As far as the bearings growing as they heat up, I'll go for that. But, unlike an axle spindle, the pinion is subjected to a LOT of heat through gear friction. Doesn't it grow in length as it heat's up? Wouldn't that offset the tightening effect of the bearings heating up? Lots of stuff we can talk about, not much that we can prove while we're sitting in front of the computer. Larry T
Ok Larry, one more thing to further contemplate... It is super easy to check endplay in an engine, right ? Tap it one way, then back the other..check with dial ind. or feeler gauge. No problem... Pinion ( or anything with 2 tapered bearings ) Is going to want to fall back to center due to the taper.... Maybe this effect is why the engineers came up with the preload thing ??? Dave
The Crush sleeve will due unless you've got 700+ horses at the flywheel and 4 link w/14x33 slicks! You can put a 11 second bracket car up on the line, running 0 backlash on your gears, stall it out @ 3800 and go back to the pits.....she's opened up at least .003!And you'll be lucky if your pionion preload is still the same......... These guys aren't ****tin ya.....it its REALLY stout.......put a spacer in,...........normal stuff......crush sleeve..........
Screaming metal. The sleeve will give up with 33" mud tires and a stock 302 ford with a manual ****** under hard use off road. Guess how I know that.
I would like an explanation of just exactly how a crush sleeve can collapse under load. Unless your bearing retainer or centersection is made out of silly putty or something, there is NO WAY that a crush sleeve can collapse under load. You have a tapered bearing on either side of the sleeve. This is an internet myth pure and simple.
the pinion is trying to screw itself forward against the front bearing retainer. the force is exactly opposite to you tightening down on the pinion nut. I used to overhaul helicopter gearboxes, and all of them were designed with solid spacers. you would surface them down to the thickness required, lapping them on a surface table or plate of gl*** with sandpaper taped to it. Moroso makes a kit with different thickness pinion spacers, they have been making them since before the internet was invented, so it is not a myth, pure and simple.
Lube on the threads and nut???? Not me, plus I don't re-use the nut. New ones have loc-***e on them for a reason. Ditch the sleeve, and use a solid spacer.
Good try, but how is the pinion, and bearing going to move forward and crush the sleeve? The solid spacer is for easier maintenance like replacing a seal or a yoke. The sleeve ensures peoper preload between the two bearings.
Yes, I'm aware of the purpose of the sleeve or a solid spacer. People do not go to the trouble of putting them in just because they might want to replace a seal someday. The crush sleeve issue is a common problem with anyone who has ever run big tires with alot of power on a 9".
I would still like someone to explain how the pinion can move when it is held in with tapered bearings at each end.
Hello. Sorry for resurrecting an ancient thread. What I think might happen is when everything is still cold and you "floor it" (***uming lots of torque and great grip/traction) the shaft twists causing it to shorten. When the shaft shortens it can crush the sleeve cancelling all cold slack you have. Your cold end play is now zero and your warm end play will be negative.
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