Morning All, Pulled the rear differential from 55 Chevy truck. Other than gunk, some surface rust on the ring gear. Everything sounds and looks pretty good. I am on the fence if I should rebuild this sucker, bearings and all, or clean and reinstall and see how she drives. No grinding on bearings. No rust on the bearings. The pinion seal needs to be replaced though. Open to suggestions. Oh yes, it all looks original. And evidence of a rebuild in the way past.
Not trying to talk you into anything or spend $$, but if you’re comfortable with the 3.90’s, run it. But if you’d like more legs for the highway, snoop around for the early/mid 60’s GMC rear ends, lot more selection of ratios available than what Chevrolet offered for your truck. I never looked into the early to mid 60’s Chevrolet rear ends though, might have choices there as well.
Looks like it has "high performance oil retention pockets" on the gear tooth faces, I would also run it as is to see if they actually matter.
Has enough pitting to make noise, but I've seen worse that ran quiet. I'm with the others...run it and see. Odds are in your favor.
Well everything is easier right now with it being clean rather then installing, lubing, running then having to disassemble, clean again etc. At a minimum I’d replace pinion seal and check the ring gear/pinion mesh with some gear marking compound. Usually you see some wear pattern on the ring gear/pinion gear even if it has some surface rust after clean up.
You know if you just replace the seal and re-install it, you will be giving up the opportunity to start an amazing string of 'while I'm at its'.
I would run it as is, you can see the wear pattern in the photos. That looks good to me. That rusty gear set would need to be replaced if you were doing a rebuild on it. Surely you would not put that gear set back in.
I bought a D44 from under a pickup sitting on a pad for who knows how long. When I got it home and popped the cover off, water and oil came out. The ring gear had rust on it from sitting in the water. I wire brushed it off. 10-12 teeth were fairly pitted. Put new bearings in it, clutch pack, shim kit, rear was quiet and a new vehicle. Luck or one in a million? Dunno.
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