So I bought my car and 2 days later the pinion nut comes loose. The car just started making a terrible grinding noise. 15 miles later I find out the pinon nut came loose. The damage was already done though. Still driveable and it appears to be purely cosmetic, just pissed cause the previous owner said he "JUST" had the rear end completely rebuild with 4.10 gears. The cover had a magnet on it and collected all the metal chips, then I threw some Redline 80w140 in and called it a day.

 

Never seen that before, you might want to check your pinion depth to make sure everything is still ok.

 

DAMN!

 

Ouch, that looks pretty nasty.

 

By the sounds of it. whoever did the gears didn't use a new pinion nut. Anytime you rebuild a diff.. you have to use a new pinion nut. Once they're removed they stretch out and won't stay put and will back off just like yours did. I'm surprised the gears held up without bustin a few teeth.

 

It looks like a few teeth are broke on the pinion gear. Aren't they?

 

Yup, time for a new ring and pinion.

 

Hey! I'm just trying to learn more about the pinon seal leak that is common for our cars. Would someone mind taking the picture that was posted above and either explain or highlight where the pinon/pinon seal is?

Thanks,
Brian

 

The pinion is the gear thing at the far side of that pic, it extends out the front of the housing, and has the drive shaft yolk bolted to it.

The pinion seal is outside the housing, just behind the yolk.

Disconnect the driveshaft from the rear end.
Remove the pinion nut
Remove the yolk
There's the seal on the housing.

 

Smells expensive....

Smells like 80/90.....Smell-o-net

Is that one of the weak 10 bolt things?? Did the pinion nut just walk out??

 

Thanks for the response!

For anyone else that is curious, I found the following page helpful:

https://autozone.ro/servlet/UiBroker...3d80050f40.jsp