On Friday I started tearing into the axle and today I did the first test drive. I pulled out the OE 3.23 gear & G80 diff and replaced with Motive 4.10's & an Eaton Truetrac.

It's quite a tedious task and surely tried my patience. I spent the majority of Saturday trying to find the balance of acceptable carrier bearing preload and proper backlash. Once found and I ran my first pattern, I found the pinion depth to be too shallow in the ring gear.

I made two more adjustments to the inner pinion bearing; first another .004" and then another .003". Pinion could've still gone deeper, but I was ready to move on so we'll see how that plays out. It also didn't help that my marking compound went to **** after sitting out over night.

Rather than using a crush sleeve, I went for a solid spacer & shims to set the pinion bearing preload. The kit came with 5x shims and two of them are the same thickness. With a .035" shim pack I had about 40 in/lbs of rotational torque and a .038" shim pack put me at 0 in/lbs. After a little head scratching, I found a shim stack that would put me at .036". After testing my 6th or 7th shim pack, I got my 19 in/lbs of rotational torque, right at the upper limit of what's deemed acceptable.

I've heard no abnormal noises or howling on my break in drives thus far.






First pattern



Final pattern

A tribute to my late friend, sumbish would try burning out in anything with wheels.


YouTube Shorts has kicked my ass

Something rare happened, a modification I made had a practical use and saved me.

Was on a job site in NE Texas that turned into a mud fest. The crane mats also got caked in mud along with caked tires. Had it not been for the Truetrac, I would've been stuck. The Yokohama XAT's also kept me from going into some nasty muck at one point also.

The OE transmission had its final moments at 284k going up the 610 ship channel bridge on 4/28. I got it home around noon and started making a work area for it. I had the transmission out on afternoon of the 29th and new transmission on afternoon of the 30th. Before mating the new transmission, I replaced the oil galley barbell plug and the rear main cover/seal. While I was tightening the bellhousing bolts, my fianc came out and requested a status report. She thought bolting up the new transmission meant I was almost done!

I then had to head out of town May 1st thru 4th. I was able to complete some work on the 5th & 6th around some gatherings of friends and family. By the 7th I was running out of things I could do solo, I needed another set of hands to hold the engine crank while I torqued the torque converter bolts. I ended up enlisting the company intern to help with the 10 minute job.

Yesterday afternoon I started the process of driving & checking the transmission fluid level. The drives went fairly well except it was shifting extremely violently and I'd get into OD & TC lockup before 40 MPH.

This morning I got over to the tuner and had him calibrate for the new transmission and torque converter. During this he noticed that it was going lean at part throttle. After making adjustments, we did another test drive. By now it was shifting well and wasn't going into lockup early, he stabbed the pedal while we were rolling in 1st. Damn thing spin in 1st and then roared the tires after shifting into 2nd lmao

Sucks to hear that. It's not just the dollar value lost, but the hours of time lost that you put into it. It's like they stole a piece of you.....

bassturds

….and thats why I no longer live in that s$&@hole

I was down there 4.5 years, rear ended three times and broken in twice

Sorry bro for the loss

I hate thieves

EskimoJoe said:

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Sucks to hear that. It's not just the dollar value lost, but the hours of time lost that you put into it. It's like they stole a piece of you.....

bassturds

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On top of all that those a-holes probably just parted it out not caring all the work that went into it.