Assessing the damage.

[jauringer]

Got another question. I've geen shopping around for the Auburn LSD's and there seems to be some confusion in the two types of Auburn units.

@ Randy's they've got the Pro-Series AG54203 for the $318 we've been discussing. They also have a High Po AG-5420110-HP series that's available for $364, OK, good deal on both but the HP must be a little better some how.

Now, I find JaysGear.com and they carry the same two setups, BUT, they've got the pricing quite different.

The Pro-Series- AG54203 $398.25

The HP-Series-AG-5420110-HP $276.76, Wow, that's a hell of a price.

So, does any one have experience with the HP vs the Pro Series?

What do ya think?

Thanks,
Jason

[WRENCH MAN]

You want the HP series, the Pro Series is for racing applications that prohibit spools.

[jauringer]

That's even better WRECHMAN. I did end up finding some information that basically reiterates what you just said. The HP has better street manners apparently.

$276 ain't bad.

Thanks,
Jason

[jauringer]

I received part of my order and started a little work so I wanted to update this thread.

Parts Ordered:
Auburn HP LSD - jawsgear.com $276.00 + 38.00 shipping.
G2 Master Install kit - 4 Wheel parts - $105.00 on discount + free shipping.

The first thing I did after this thread was start reading. If you look hard enough and/or have friends, there is some very good information out there that really helps. The best documentation covering a gear setup that I have seen includes the service manual, "Gettin' the Gears Done" by Bill (BillaVista) Ansell (thanks Davis), and the Yukon Installation kit instructions. The BillaVista document being the most comprehensive, by far. Anything I know about setting up gears has only come in the last couple weeks and mainly due to these docs. This is a new adventure for me and I want to document what I do for a few reasons but mainly to allow someone in my shoes to be able to find a good thread to get them started. Since this is my first rodeo, you'll also be there to see me screw up and/or do something stupid, but that's just part of learning something new. Hopefully my mistakes will keep someone else from doing the same thing. (Even better, I'm hoping someone here might be able to keep me from making those mistakes.)

I have not received my Auburn yet but did get the install kit. I also picked up the set-up bearings from Davis along with a few shims, gear marking compound, etc.

Since I had enough to start working, I went ahead and setup a portion of the garage, gathered up, and laid out all the tools I'll need. Here's my makeshift "Gear Department"



Tools include:
Torque wrench up to 250ft lbs. - Pinion nut
torque wrench up to 60 inch pounds. pinion preload
adapters to get from 1/4'' socket to 1/2'' socket
0-1'' micrometer - Measuring shim packs
Setup bearings
Dial indicator - Measuring backlash
Bearing puller
2 jaw puller - pulling yoke off pinion
dead blow hammer - getting the carrier back in the housing
1-1/8 pinion nut socket
bearing/race drivers
Master install kit: shims, all bearings & races, thread locker, gasket sealer, marking compound, ring gear bolts
3ft of galvanized pipe for a breaker bar.
big pipe wrench with 3ft of pipe to hold the yoke while tightening everything down.
misc, carb cleaner, microfiber rags, petroleum jelly, soft faced hammer, etc.




I also put together all my notes and made some references to hang up for information on the fly. Which includes a exploded view of the Dana 44, and little sketch of the pinion and carrier with labels, and the diff specs from the IH manual.



Then I cleaned, measured and labeled all of the old shims. I kept all these figures in order by location. I then cleaned, measured and labeled the new shims by location and then put the new shim packs together. My starting point will be the exact same as what came out since I'm using the same gear set. The BillaVista write up has a small table for keeping track of shims stacks and the data associated with those stacks. I pulled that table and then duplicated it on multiple sheets of paper with enough room for notes. I'll update it and make notes with each attempt to make sure I'm headed in the right direction.




Since I have the pinion and all of the tools ready, I though I would go ahead and start working toward my goal. I first started by cleaning up the pinion really well, I also cleaned the pinion threads to make sure they were nice and straight. There are two shims packs on the pinion, one is the pinion preload adjusted with the outer pinion shims (behind cone), and one is the pinion depth, adjusted with the inner pinion shims (behind cup). At this point, Pinion preload is all I'm worried about to start with. Paraphrasing BillaVista "Measuring pinion depth uses specialized and expensive tools and it is not necessary, it is only used to calculate a starting point. Final proof always lies in the contact pattern." With that said, I'm using the same size shim stack that came out and will make adjustments depending on the patter.

I first installed the New outer pinion race and the new inner pinion bearing cup. There are no shims behind either of these so there no need for setup cup and race for these locations.

Next, I installed the inner pinion shim pack and inner pinion (setup) race in the housing. Then, I slid the pinion into the housing and pushed on the outer pinion shim pack and outer setup bearing followed by the baffle, yoke washer, and pinion nut. I then torqued it down to 190ft/lbs (Manual states 175-225 ft/lbs). Next, to measure pinion preload, added adapters to my torque wrench so that I could fit a 1/2 socket on a 1/4 in wrench, then I slid it over the pinion nut and began turning the pinion watching the torque it took to keep it spinning. One the documents indicates that you should not record the torque it takes to get the pinion spinning, but the torque reading after it's has begun to spin. For preload to be in spec, the manual states that it should require 10-20in/lbs for a used bearing (my setup bearing) or 20-40in/lbs for a new bearing (which what it will be during final assembly.) Using the original shim stack size, mine came out to 20in/lbs, right in the middle of both!

I guess my questions would be,

1. Is there a better end to be in? High or low side of spec?

2. Since the new bearing has to be a higher preload, and I'm still well within spec on max pinion nut torque, i can just adjust the torque until I have the preload I need at final assembly, correct?





That's where I am as of today. My LSD is coming from Cali unfortunately and it hasn't even shipped yet according to the online status so It may be a few days before I can move forward.

This small little exercise did teach me a few things. They're small but are a few of those things that are easy to take for granted. (Ahh, that's not that big of deal.)

1st. prior to my carrier cracking, my pinion did not have near the preload that this exercise taught me it should have.

2. I cringed a little thinking of the times I changed my pinion seal and just impacted the nut back on!! As you can see, the torque of that nut is pretty important. So many variations go into the amount of torque an impact applies. Setting, Gun size, air pressure, Theres no telling what your torque is when using one.

3. Speaking of pinion nut, Know I see why It's pretty important to replace the nut if you ever have to remove it. It's a locking nut for a reason. When you remove it, it can no longer do it's job of holding that preload very well.


Most importantly, since this is all new info I'm sharing. Please correct me if something here needs to be corrected, added, deleted,........ what ever.

Thanks,
Jason

[Jay Tabor]

theres no sense setting pinion preload with old/set up bearings/ why?
its a complete waste of time/energy. its meaningless. unless you need the practice......

what matters is the preload with the bearings you are gonna run . .
the pinion nut cant be tightened more to set the preload torque higher, that only works with pinion collapsible collars, you got shims . .
so any amount of torque on the pinion nut will get you the preload .
you can only squeeze immovable objects so far . .

then setting the new bearing preload near 40 inch pounds . . ehhhhhh i dont bother anymore
20 to 30 inch lbs is ok. for me.
why not use same old pinion depth shims, then you know itll be set exactly to correcto deptho.
unless of course you beat them all up removing them.
[just so you dont make a mistake there. with the exact depth.]
I forget how much the preload changes per.001" of shim, used to have that data etched upon my mind, have to look it up now.
but basically about .002 removed from preload shim pack aughta get you close to the 40 inch pounds> one /.001" per 10 inch pounds, or maybe it was 5 pounds per 001 .

best to use old nut while doing that, then when preload figures are right and youre adding correct amount of shims for final lift off, and stuffing the seal in the housing THEN use the new opinionated nut . .
them things are really only supposed to be used once.............
its easy enough to fix that 'once use'.. youll see on the new cleannut some depressions where the round hole is made unround, so it locks itself to the pinion shaft.
a smackeroo to the nut in the same place as the old depression is, with a good center punch, turns the nut-any nut intoa lock nut . .
thats an old trade secret told to me by some old guy who used to drive chariots . .
or was that ford broncos . . .
make sure- DOUBLE SURE each of them new ringo star bolts are loctited inplace!
ima gonna check yer work . . aint lettign you outa the shop lest you did that!!
as yopu place the ring gear on the super duper auburn carrier, set it on gently, start 4 bolts equally spaced around the circle, then witha rawhide mallet, or rubber mallet, tap the ring gear down till it seats itself all the way around
BE SURE ITS CLEAN AS A WHISTLE a tiny piece of dirt under the ring gear will puta run out in the back lash you dont want! youll be singing the blues for days!!
gotta take it all apart again . .
then once the ring gear is tight on the carrier DIRT FREE, then PUT ALL NEW RING BOLTS in with loctite on them and run them up quickly going crisscross around the outisde,round the outside . then stuff the carrier in the vise and torque the bolts in phases 12, 6 oclock 3,9,8,2,11,5 , , and so on all around, then double check each in sequential order all around the ring. mark each bolt with chaclk so you know you done did it right.
best way to fix it in the vise for torqueing is set it on an axle shaft clamped in the vise,
now arent you glad I told you that??
saves a lot of time trying ta figgure that one . .

my air guns 1/2 inch impacts i can torque the bolts.nuts to within about 5 foot pounds of correct toruqe -cause i done did it so many times . . 'got the feel for it'.
youse gonna hasta do it the old fashionated way- by hand!!
apprentices don't get no short cuts!!

oh be sure and note all the shim pack specs and torques used etc. and put that away for reference, comes in handy for future work..

[jauringer]

Thanks for the info Jay. Practice is good for me, but that's not my intention. The way I understand it, using the set up outside pinion bearing is so that you can easily get the bearing off to make changes to the inner (depth) pinion shim pack.

As far as shims packs go. I did use the exact same size shim pack vs what I took off for everything. I could still actually use the exact same shim pack on the preload, but the depth shims are toast.

I may be reading too much into your post but are you saying that everything should fall into spec right off the bat since I'm retaining my gears (or at least pinion depth and preload)? I figured using the same size shim packs as before would get me pretty close but I assumed the new bearings would probably throw something out a whack. It seems I read somewhere that the same bearings can have a variation of up to .003 in fit.

I'll make note of those preload adjustments you mention for final assembly. I've also got the thread locker ready for the ring bolts.

BTW: One thing I forgot to touch on before was the install kit. So, I'm on 4 wheel parts site looking install kits. There's a whole page of them ranging from $100-$220. Every single one of them lists the exact same contents, what up with that? Well I figured it out. It's the shims. A $105 kit doesn't even provide a shim below .010 The G2 kit comes with all Timken bearings and is nice, but you've got to spend more than the $109 to do an install. Unfortunately they don't list the number and size range of shims you get. Luckily, Davis provided me with a couple more that are thinner but I still ordered another stand alone shim kit just in case.


Jason

Originally Posted by Jay Tabor

theres no sense setting pinion preload with old/set up bearings/ why?
its a complete waste of time/energy. its meaningless. unless you need the practice......

what matters is the preload with the bearings you are gonna run . .
the pinion nut cant be tightened more to set the preload torque higher, that only works with pinion collapsible collars, you got shims . .
so any amount of torque on the pinion nut will get you the preload .
you can only squeeze immovable objects so far . .

then setting the new bearing preload near 40 inch pounds . . ehhhhhh i dont bother anymore
20 to 30 inch lbs is ok. for me.
why not use same old pinion depth shims, then you know itll be set exactly to correcto deptho.
unless of course you beat them all up removing them.
[just so you dont make a mistake there. with the exact depth.]
I forget how much the preload changes per.001" of shim, used to have that data etched upon my mind, have to look it up now.
but basically about .002 removed from preload shim pack aughta get you close to the 40 inch pounds> one /.001" per 10 inch pounds, or maybe it was 5 pounds per 001 .

best to use old nut while doing that, then when preload figures are right and youre adding correct amount of shims for final lift off, and stuffing the seal in the housing THEN use the new opinionated nut . .
them things are really only supposed to be used once.............
its easy enough to fix that 'once use'.. youll see on the new cleannut some depressions where the round hole is made unround, so it locks itself to the pinion shaft.
a smackeroo to the nut in the same place as the old depression is, with a good center punch, turns the nut-any nut intoa lock nut . .
thats an old trade secret told to me by some old guy who used to drive chariots . .
or was that ford broncos . . .
make sure- DOUBLE SURE each of them new ringo star bolts are loctited inplace!
ima gonna check yer work . . aint lettign you outa the shop lest you did that!!
as yopu place the ring gear on the super duper auburn carrier, set it on gently, start 4 bolts equally spaced around the circle, then witha rawhide mallet, or rubber mallet, tap the ring gear down till it seats itself all the way around
BE SURE ITS CLEAN AS A WHISTLE a tiny piece of dirt under the ring gear will puta run out in the back lash you dont want! youll be singing the blues for days!!
gotta take it all apart again . .
then once the ring gear is tight on the carrier DIRT FREE, then PUT ALL NEW RING BOLTS in with loctite on them and run them up quickly going crisscross around the outisde,round the outside . then stuff the carrier in the vise and torque the bolts in phases 12, 6 oclock 3,9,8,2,11,5 , , and so on all around, then double check each in sequential order all around the ring. mark each bolt with chaclk so you know you done did it right.
best way to fix it in the vise for torqueing is set it on an axle shaft clamped in the vise,
now arent you glad I told you that??
saves a lot of time trying ta figgure that one . .

my air guns 1/2 inch impacts i can torque the bolts.nuts to within about 5 foot pounds of correct toruqe -cause i done did it so many times . . 'got the feel for it'.
youse gonna hasta do it the old fashionated way- by hand!!
apprentices don't get no short cuts!!

oh be sure and note all the shim pack specs and torques used etc. and put that away for reference, comes in handy for future work..

[jauringer]

Found some good information I thought I would add. Attached is "Automotive Study of Gear Oils" and it's very interesting. If you haven't already seen it, take a look. The best product probably won't be a surprise to many, but the fact the Royal Purple Gear oil scored so poorly was a surprise to me. That's what was in both my diffs.

Jason

[Jay Tabor]

[QUOTE=jauringer;762744]Thanks for the info Jay. Practice is good for me, but that's not my intention. The way I understand it, using the set up outside pinion bearing is so that you can easily get the bearing off to make changes to the inner (depth) pinion shim pack.]]]

The rear[outer bearing] slides off the pinion shaft real easy anyways!!
next- is using loosely fitting fake bearings means the backlash and pinion depth wont be exact!
YOU WANT IT EXACT, YOU ARE USING A BROKE IN GEAR SET, those gears/teeth have allready worn them selves in, after years of running, resetting the pinion depth or backlash will makes those GEARS SING!! worse with chrysler and fords. for somE reason , than dana.
you dont need to adjust /set pinion depth- set it the same as it was using same shim amounts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
it might be good practice since you havent done those gear set ups before,
I set the pinion depth exactly as original [ using same gears]-
never ever seen a difference in pattern yet from only replacing bearings.
if Im re-bearing the r&p.
if swapping gears i adjust as the gear face noteation for pinion depth and leave it alone.
using pinion depth gauge is nice for exactness.
but you wont be seeing the difference of.002 using patterns on teeth with white lead . .
youll only hear it when cruising down the road! wWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[[[[[[[As far as shims packs go. I did use the exact same size shim pack vs what I took off for everything. I could still actually use the exact same shim pack on the preload, but the depth shims are toast.]]]]]]]

UNDERSTOOD- thats part of the process in rebuilding..

[[[[[[[[[[I may be reading too much into your post but are you saying that everything should fall into spec right off the bat since I'm retaining my gears (or at least pinion depth and preload)? I figured using the same size shim packs as before would get me pretty close but I assumed the new bearings would probably throw something out a whack. It seems I read somewhere that the same bearings can have a variation of up to .003 in fit.]]]]]]

no you arent reading too much --THATS WHAT i MEANT, SEE ABOVE!!



[[[[[[[[[BTW: One thing I forgot to touch on before was the install kit. So, I'm on 4 wheel parts site looking install kits. There's a whole page of them ranging from $100-$220. Every single one of them lists the exact same contents, what up with that? Well I figured it out. It's the shims. A $105 kit doesn't even provide a shim below .010 The G2 kit comes with all Timken bearings and is nice, but you've got to spend more than the $109 to do an install. Unfortunately they don't list the number and size range of shims you get. Luckily, Davis provided me with a couple more that are thinner but I still ordered another stand alone shim kit just in case.]]]]]]]]]]


THATS BEING SMART- CANT HAVE TOO MANY SHIMS, confer with dana website- they list shims in a set, and where they go. randys R&P tells you also..
4wp wholesale: gotta be careful, makes sure its all timken bearings!


oh while youre at it, read the pinion set depth markings on the gear face. eg:[.-003]
and subtract [.003] that amount and remeasure the shim pack for standard pinion depth and you have the correct amount of shims for future gear set up!!!
basic pinion depth of = 2.50".
thatll be handy incase you ever have a bare housing, and new gears..
saves a lot of work trying to figure out and measure to get correct pinion depth.
then knowing the standard shim pack for pinion depth, adjusting for a new pinion will be easy as pie!
hey now isnt that handy!!

[jauringer]

Sounds like this job isn't going to be much like a full install. Quite a bit easier i guess. Just to be clear. I've got the real depth bearing installed, but the race is a push fit. It's exactly the opposite on the outer/preload, push fit bearing, real race. But, If I just need to leave the depth shims alone, then I'll go ahead and knock in the real depth race with the OE matched shim pack. Which BTW is .033 and my pinion marking is +2.

I did make some adjustments this afternoon as the setup preload bearing is actually new, so my preload did need to go up. I had to drop my original shim pack from .071 to .063 and was able to get 35 in/lbs. When I put the new bearing in, I'll probably go ahead and make it a full .010 decrease to hopefully hit it right on 40 in/lbs.

Jason

[Jay Tabor]

forgot to mention, knocking a race in and out of the housing multiple times, you can cause it to fit badly.
by stressing the housing when the race doesnt go in straight,
gouging the housing race seat area might cause the race to not fully seat..
plus all the pounding on the race itself isnt good for it.