I initially thought my humming noise coming from my rear was the axle outer wheel bearing. Replaced and no go, after listening while the car was jacked up and in gear, I think I've narrowed it down to a bearing in the differential (shown below).



Can I pull the ring/"smallgears" housing assembly/bearings/races out with minimal effort? I tried by hand and it didn't seem to budge. Do I have to loosen the pinion first? I'd rather not if I don't need to.

BTW, this is for a 1995 Camaro V6 3.4L (Non-limited slip differential).

Thanks!

 

The pinion should not have to be bothered, but you will have to pry out the whole carrier. The bearings are pressed onto it. Be careful to find all the shims and where they came from. The gears may have to be re-setup after the bearing change.

 

Thanks shoebox,

So do I need to drop the whole differential housing for this?

You said the new bearings need to be pressed back on.. would this need to be done at a shop, or are they pressed on with the 2-bolt brackets that cover the other side of the bearing?

And what do you mean by `the gears being re-setup` ? Do you mean the 4 smaller gears that are held in with the pinion shaft? Please explain.

Thanks for the help!

 

The carrier can take a lot of force to pry out. You wedge a lever behind it to force it to come toward your (in the direction of the caps you took off). The housing can stay in the car.

Once the carrier is out, the bearings can be reached and pressed off and back on. There will be shims between the bearings and the housing. They must go back the same as they came out for the ring and pinion pattern to even have a chance of being the same as it was. With new bearings, it may not be so. That is why you may need to have the ring and pinion adjustments redone (just like if you were installing new gears).

 

Easy way to pull the carrier out without prybars, this is really helpful when doing it with the rear still in the car:

Put a closed end wrench on one of the ring gear bolts. Put a 1/2 drive ratchet/socket on the pinion nut, turn in the forward direction. When the wrench gets close to being stopped by the top of the case, put a folded rag between wrench and case (protects case). Turn the pinion nut and when the wrench gets stopped by the case, it will spit out the carrier in a controlled manner, so you can turn the ratchet with one hand, while controlling the carrier with the other. It can take considerable force to break the carrier loose initially, but once it pops, takes much less torque on the ratchet to get it the rest of the way out.

On carriers without a tone ring, you can just use a common open/closed wrench with a ~ 15* angle, but looks like yours might require one with an offset due to the tone ring possibly not allowing a regular wrench to go on the ring gear bolt head. I've never done a diff with a tone ring, so can't say for sure.

It kind of sucks to put the carrier back in. The shims on the outside of the carrier bearings will preload the carrier bearings (squeeze them) so getting the last shim in can be work, and you have to be careful you don't damage anything.

I like to grind a small relief angle on the thickest side shim. Not a big angle like 45*, a smaller angle like 10*, just enough to help get the shim started in. Deburr after grinding. Pop the other shims part of the way in with the carrier part way in the case. Then tap in the shim you modified, leading with the angle, with a brass hammer (so you don't damage the shims). Tap the other shims and the modified one alternately till all are fully in. Take your time and be patient. When I say tap, it's exactly that. If it seems like it's taking too much force, stop and see if something didn't get cocked. It's a feel thing; if it feels like shims are going in as you tap, keep going. If it feels like you're getting solid clunks, stop and check.

 

Sounds like a good way of over tightening the pinion nut. The pinion nut is tightened until a specified rotational drag is achieved. Pet peeve of mine is to watch mechanics simply blast the nut on with an impact gun “until its right” and call it a day. Just carefully pry it out!!!!

Likewise the preload on the carrier is set by rotational drag.

 

Pinion nut has much more torque on it than required to get the carrier out. Notice I said to use a 1/2 drive ratchet, not a breaker bar. Just give the ratchet a good yank once the wrench stops, then it's just steady torque. Keep in mind the ratchet torque gets multiplied by the gear ratio. I've posted this trick on boards before and once had someone say it would probably break teeth off the ring or pinion. Well maybe on the "glass" 7.5 diff.

Seriously, I've been using this method since I first saw it in Hot Rod ~ mid 80s. I think it was Tom from Tom's Differentials doing a 12 bolt IIRC. Up to that point I'd been doing it with pry bars. Did it once with the wrench method, and that was that. Have never damaged anything. 12 bolts, 8.5" "corporate" diffs, type O Olds, 8.8" Fords, 7.5" Fords. Try it one time and you'll come over to the dark side too.

 

MWAHAHAHAHAHAH


Next time i do a rear i will try it. Maybe paint a stripe across the nut onto the pinion so that you can see if it tightens the nut at all.

 

Excellent... /Mr. Burns

PM me when you do to see what you think about the trick.