Hi everyone, Newbie here. I am replacing a leaking pinion seal in a ford 9 inch and when I took the yoke off the pinion nut was very loose (aprox 20ft lbs). I have read up on how to replace the pinion seal and was expecting the nut to be around 200ft lbs. I measured the force to rotate the pinion prior to loosening the nut (3.5 newton meters) but with the nut that loose I would think that number is useless. What do I need to do to get this thing reassembled correctly? I am putting in a Chicago Rawhide 18833 seal. Thanks, Sean
If I were doing it, I'd pull the pinion support out, take it apart, inspect the bearings. Get a new crush sleeve and seal, put it back together, press the yoke on till there's just a little bit of free play, then tighten the nut with a bigass wrench, while the yoke is in the vise, a little bit at a time until it has the specified bearing preload for used bearings. Like in the shop manual. http://selectric.org/manuals/rearend/indexford.html but that's just me, there are other ways of doing it, some work well, some don't
A free spinning with a inch pound torque meter (dial type) should have 15 - 25 inch resistance. Its tough to gage when pinion support is installed but do-able. You can pull the pinion support and do this on the bench as an option
squirrel, If I unbolt the pinon retainer (page 10) will that whole assembly come out? is the crush washer the 'pinon bearing spacer' on page 10? Thanks, Sean
Crush sleeve is the pinion bearing spacer. Different names for the same part. The whole assembly will come out, there are 5 bolts that hold it in. There is a shim between the pinion support and the center housing, also an O ring that you probably should replace too.
Ok, got it. So I can install the pinion seal and torque the yoke down to 175 ft lbs in the vice, then install the assembly with yoke attached? Then once in the axle housing I check the torque to rotate the pinion and tighten the pinion nut by small amounts to get the desired bearing preload? Thanks again for the help, you guys are awesome and fast to respond! Sean
Set the pinion bearing preload before installing the pinion/retainer/yoke assembly into the housing. When you tighten the pinion nut, you have to "sneak up on it", tighten it a little, then check the preload, tighten some more, check again, etc. As you tighten the nut, the crush sleeve crushes a little, making it thinner, so the bearings are not spaced as far apart. That makes the bearing preload a little bit higher. But it will change from having clearance and no preload, to having no clearance and preload, suddenly. Kind of hard to explain, you have to do it. I'd get an extra crush sleeve if you've never done it before, in case you go too far the first time
Always install a new nut and while you are replacing the crush sleeve, pre crush the new one to almost the old one. getting the new sleeve to start to crush is the hard part, from there it is eaiser
New nut is a good idea. You can get away with loctite on the old one, if you have trouble finding a new one. I also put a little rtv sealer on the ends of the splines, just under the nut, to keep from leaking oil out there.
Found where to buy a new nut so I will go that route. http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Pinion-Nut-for-9-Inch-Ford,3779.html I will pull the pinion retainer and assembly and get some parts on order tomorrow after work. I feel like I hit the jackpot with this site. I grew up a gear head riding/racing and wrenching on atvs/dirtbikes/snowmobiles. Just recently got into hotrods thanks to my wife's uncle. Hes a retired mechanic that builds hot rods in his spare time. We just bought his recent build, (and possibly last due to failing health) a 32 ford roadster, fiberglass, with a 60' 401ci buick nailhead. Sean
always put on a new nut. a reused nut could have started this whole mess for you. don't throw out the old one tag it and use it for your initial setups next time. then use another new one for your final assemble. its very cheap insurance. i just ordered two this week from moser.
Used pinion bearings have a much lower spec of rotating torque like 6-15 in lbs, but with it being loose like that I don't know if I would trust the old bearings. New bearings are usually like 16-29 in lbs.
I would not recom pre press the new crush sleeve. Try that once with chevy 10 bolt and sleeve crush unevenly and was impossible to put a round of pinion. I was using big steady hydraulic press so lousy tools not explain the happened thing. You can replace the crush sleeve with solid piece of tube but it takes lot of trial and error to make the preload correct. Did that once on corvettes rear. In general, ford unit is so easy to bolt off and take to bench that i dont even think of doing it under a car.
This has to be done with only the pinion gear, never with the ring gear in contact with it, as the torque will be higher to turn both. I never use the torque ie: 175 ft/lb to tighten up a pinion nut. I tighten it up until it starts to get tight(squishing the collar) and feel for backlash between the bearings and then give it a quarter turn at a time checking for backlash. When all backlash is taken up is when I use the in/lb rotating test until reaching the 12- 15 in/lb rotating torque.
The 9" is easy to do this on, you put the whole pinion assembly together, then press the pinion into the yoke, until the free play goes down to almost nothing. Then start tightening the nut. Yeah, don't try to press the crush sleeve when it's just sitting there by itself
I have the pinion out and apart. Bearings look and feel good. Turns out I have a Ratech crush sleeve eliminator. Anyone use this? I read that you just need to torque the pinion nut down to 125 ft lbs? the bearing preload is set by the solid spacer and shims. Should I still get a new pinion nut?
A new nut is a good idea. You do torque the nut tight with the spacer..but you need to check the bearing preload to make sure it has the correct shim. If the shim is too thin, the pinion will require more than the specified torque to turn. It's common for shims to get worn thin when the nut gets loose, and everything is no longer clamped together.
If you want a little better pinion seal, Ford motorsport has a viton seal called the "Benda" pinion seal , named after the Ford engineer that designed it. Summit racing and quite a few other places or your local Ford dealer should be able to get it.
Crush sleeve eliminator Or spacers are used in various differentials using very thin shims to adjust your pinion preload. The advantage is to torque the yoke to a higher value on not change any given preload. Unless you have more shims for that you are stuck with that setting you have. You can go back to a crush sleeve and eliminate the spacer as an option, but given all the advice here which is spot on you will have to find your way through this and gain experience. If you had known the spacer was installed you could have replaced the seal and torqued the yoke up not having to go any further, given there were no other problems
Thanks for all of the help everyone. I will pick up a Benda seal from Ford and keep the other as a spare. I will follow up once I get her back together. Sean
Just ran into this on my Fairlane rear. I used an impact to remove the pinion nut replaced the leaking seal and reinstalled the nut to around 75 ft lb or just about what it took to take the nut off. Didn't know that it was set up without a crush sleeve at all, never heard of that before. Rear picked up a howl and vibration at 45mph. It had thread lock on the pinion nut to keep it tight. New pinion bearings and crush sleeve and $120 later its ready for another try.
The chicago rawhide seal came today so I put everything together. I only got 5 inch pounds of preload on the pinion bearings. From what I have read 12ish is ideal so I took 1 of the 3 shims out but then I could only tighten the pinion nut to 40ft lbs before bearing reload increased well pass 20 inch pounds (used bearings). Besides the loose pinion nut and leak at the seal everything was fine before, and the bearings look great, so I put it all back together with 3 shims at 5 inch pounds of preload, 125 ft lb on the pinion nut. I used the old nut and red loctite. Hopefully no rain tomorrow so I can take her on a test drive.
Got it back together and it drives great. Still leaks but I dont think as bad, will be able to gauge better tomorrow morning depending on how many drops are on the floor.
Did you notice if there was a groove wore into the flange where the seal rides? A repair sleeve should take care of it if so. Or find a better flange.
When you say flange do you mean the yoke or the pinion carrier? I did notice an imperfection on the pinion carrier where the metal portion of the pinion seal sits against, but it only extends across half of the surface. I coated the outside of the seal with gasket sealer when I put it in. It went in pretty tight.
I'm talking the surface of the yoke where the seal rides, the seal can cut a groove to the point where a seal won't do it's job. I run into this even on newer stuff and end up replacing the yolk and seal.
I did notice a grove on the yoke... depending on how much oil I find on the ground tomorrow I will have to look into a new yoke. Hopefully I don't have to put in a new seal, the last one was a pain to get out.
Well its been a few days and I have driven about 30 miles and I only have a slight dampness, no drops of oil. I'm considering this one fixed for now. Thanks fellas!
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