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Well this weekend I finally got around to installing my SLP takeoff LSD. I have decided to make a post to help all of those who have had odd questions about the install and just not asked.
Background: My car has 67k+miles and is a daily driver and my only transportation so I wanted to do this only once and made sure I had an entire weekend and a ride to the parts store should I need it. (and I did) Also because of the high mileage I also replaced the axle bearings and seals just to be on the safe side and it's cheap preventative maintenance. (cost for both bearings and seals ~$15).
Tools Used:
1. complete socket and wrench set though I proably used about 6 different sockets alltogether.
2. torque wrench for the ring gear bolts and the bearing caps.
3. seal puller (~$8 at any parts store) for the axle seals good cheap tool to have in your toolbox.
4. long screw driver or pry bar (used to get the carrier out without much trouble
5. slide hammer (you can rent these at autozone and they are used to pull the axle bearings, not needed if you aren't pulling the axle bearings)
6. Dremmel (used to cut off the old carrier bearing races)
7. 3lb sledge (aka the motivator)
8. block of wood (8"-10" piece of 2x4 comes in really handy for driving things on, goes between the hammer and whatever you are putting on)
9. small piece of metal pipe the size of the carrier bearing (used to seat bearings and seals and such)
Carrier Prep
well first off as several people have mentioned the bearings on the carrier as it comes from SLP are likely bent, nicked or generally beat up, as my car is relatively high mileage I had planned to not use them anyway so this wasn't a big deal.
IMO the best place to get new carrier bearings is through a timken dealer, this will usually be some kind of industrial parts store.
The timken part numbers are as follows:
LM501349- this is the bearing
LM501314- this is the outer race or the "cup"
together 2 of each of these cost me about $25 after tax at a local industrial parts store, the bearings were in stock but the race's had to be ordered, I kinda had a hookup so you may get charged a few dollars more but I wouldn't think they would be much more than $30. To locate a timken dealer go to find a timken distributor
Ok now that you have your new bearings time to get the old ones off, you got 2 approaches here take the whole thing to somebody and pay them or use/borrow a dremmel or something with a cutoff wheel. The bearing on the carrier consist of the bearing "cage" the aucutally roller bearings and the inner race which is what the rollers ride on and what is pressed onto the carrier. I first took the dremmel and cut the cage open removed that and the roller bearings this will happen fast and if you don't watch out bearings will go everywhere. Now you are left with just the carrier and the inner races, the best way I found was to take the dremmel and slowly cut in to the race keeping a constant eye on the depth of the cut because you really don't want to get into the carrier but just cut almost all the way through the race itself. A diagonal cut works well. Once you are satisfied with the depth of your cut and you really want to be most of the way through next you can make a second relief cut which will come out looking like you have cut something in the shape of a the letter "Y" in the race. I did this because I found it makes em come off fast and easy because the race has been so weakend.
Then take a hammer and punch (or old big screw driver in my case) set the carrier up on end and drive down on that upper part of the "y" cut you have made this should make the bearing crack all the way through then you can get it of fairly easily. On a side note I tried renting a 3 prong puller and it turns out the dremmel method is much easier and faster, takes maybe 10 minutes a side if you are going slow and watching your cuts closely.
Next to drive the bearing on I set the carrier on a piece of wood then set another piece of wood on top of the new bearing so I could hammer on the wood and drive the bearing on. Once I had the face of the bearing flush with the carrier I used that piece of pipe with a rag between it and the bearing to drive it on the last few thousandths into it's seat. This whole process might take you 30 minutes or as I said in the beginning you could take it to a machine shop and pay somebody but if you are reading this I guess you would want to do it yourself.
Alright so the carrier is ready for the gear transplant and install.
Install prep:
First you need to get the car in the air safely so that you have the vehicle supported by the frame and the axle hangs down. The first thing I did once the car was in the air was pull the diff cover and drain the oil. then pull off the tires, and calipers. I used some bailing wire to tie the calipers to the springs so they wouldn't hang by the lines which could damage them. Next remove the Disks (or drums if that's what you got). Mine were rusted into place so some pb blaster (rust dissolver) and the motivator came in quite handy here.
Old carrier removal
Now that we have the oil drained and the wheels and brakes off it's time to remove the carrier. First rotate the carrier until you see the small bolt which holds a verticle shaft in place. Take that bolt out and the shaft will easily slide out, at this point you can take out the spider gears which is what the shaft held in place if yours stay put so you can work don't worry about it. Mine got to be a pain so I removed them. you should now be able to push each axle in just a bit and then remove a "C" clip which is on the end of each axle, put these aside as you must re use them.
Next remove the bearing cap bolts. and pull the bearing caps off but first be sure to note the alignment of the tabs on the caps as they point outward separate the caps so you know which is for each side because you want to put them back where they came from.
Ok this carrier is in there tight, it's supposed to be that way. This is where the pry bar comes in handy. Rotate the carrier so one of the ring gear bolts is somewhat centered in the housing then take the pry bar and using the housing as a fulcrum and the bolt head as the point of contact pry the carrier out it should slide relatively easily depending on the size of your bar and how much leverage you have, do this slowly and easily as you don't want to drop and damage anything. Also pay attention to the shimms there will likely be one for each side separate them so you know which one is for which side these must go back in the way they came out.
Ok now you have the carrier out of the housing time to move the ring gear and abs reluctor ring to the new carrier. (on a side note if you have 3.08 gears disregard this part as this writeup is just for people doing a diff swap and you have alot of other stuff that must be done)
Ring gear and reluctor ring swap
first off the bolts on the ring gear are left hand threaded so you turn them left to tighten and right to loosen. I set the whole carrier on some wood with an old rag covering the wood to prevent damage to the ring gear or the abs ring. Place something long in the center of the carrier so it will only rotate so far then using a breakover bar or whatever break all the bolts loose. (a 4 foot cheater bar makes fast work of these bolts)
Now don't completey remove the bolts but get them out enough so that they are still in the gear by a rotation or 2 then take a block of wood and put it over the bolt heads and drive off the ring gear evenly. It doesn't take alot of force with a 3lb sledge but just mainly make sure you are driving the gear off evenly. Now observe the way the reluctor ring is on the carrier maybe even mark the right or left side of it so you know how it is going on the new carrier. And again using the block of wood to prevent damage to the reluctor ring, knock it off the housing it doesn't take much force to do this.
Now put the reluctor ring on the new carrier the same way it came off the old one and put the ring gear on top of that and thread the bolts on as best you can by hand. Next slowly a few turns at a time tighten the bolts using some sort of star pattern to "pull" the gear on the carrier evenly. Eventually things will get fairly tight and it will be time to break out the torque wrench. Using much the same method to hold the carrier in place as you used to break the bolts loose use the torque wrench to finally tighten the bolts to 89 ft/lbs. Once you have done this it's time to put the carrier back into place.
carrier reinstallation
Alright now it's time to start putting things back. The first thing I did was put the driver side shim in it's place. next I slid the bearing races "cups" over the bearings after applying a coating of grease on each one (this kinda helps hold things in place also helps to put it on the shims to hold them in place also). Now slide the whole unit into place, it will not go very far before your efforts pushing become useless. Now it's time to drive that sucker in. Using your trusty block of wood and hammer slowly drive the carrier in being sure to watch the shim that isn't already in place and try to get it to go in evenly with the carrier. eventually everything should line up and the carrier will be in place. Now go ahead and put the bearing caps on and if you are happy with everything torque them down to 55 ft/lbs.
axle seal and bearing replacement
if you aren't doing this just jump down to the next section
first off you have to get rid of the seal the best way to do that is to use the seal puller and with a good firm yank it will come right out. You should now be looking at the axle bearing. The best way I saw to take these out was with a slide hammer, (if you have never used a tool like this before it's not tough but with a little common sense and safety you should be good to go). It is going to take a bit of muscle but the bearings come out without much fanfare, except for the fact that you might tear the actual roller bearings and cage out and be left with just the race to pull if that's what happens no big deal just make sure there are no rollers left inside the axle housing before reinstalling. Next set the new bearing in place and drive it home using that same piece of pipe you used to set the carrier bearing, feel around the back of the bearing to tell when it is seated properly. Next press the seal in place and using either a bock of wood or that piece of pipe drive it in place so that it's even (I also put a film of grease on the bearings and the rubber part of the seal so the axle slides in and out better.
completion
Now go ahead and slide your axles back in the housing and be kinda careful as you don't want to knick anything, it may take a turn in one direction or another to get the axle to go all the way into the carrier, get under the car and slide each "c" clip back in place and then slide the axle back out till it catches. You are now ready to install the block which holds the axles in place in the carrier, side it home ( on a side note there is a right way and a wrong way to do this if the block won't go all the way in pull it out rotate 180 degrees and try again). Next put the keeper bolt in place and your new diff is now assembled. Before doing anything else do yourself a favor and give everything a spin and make sure it's all smooth.
THIS IS AN IMPORTANT NOTE
I know many people on the board have talked about jacking the car up and spinning one tire and how the other one should spin if the car has a limited slip diff this is UNTRUE if you are using a torsen diff this simply will not work that way. after reinstalling the tires and having everything in place with the car on jack stands (this is kinda dangerous by the way but my car was very very secure) I put the car in gear and let the tires spin with the motor at idle they were not spinning fast at all I could grab one tire and hold it while the other one spun freely however the diff was working and I could feel it catching and trying to turn the tire but my hold was greater than the amount of torque being transferred see it's like this the diff can only transfer a portion of the torque which is being sent through the drive line and there is no way you are going to produce enough with your hands spinning the tire or with the car at idle in this case to overcome the hold you can put on the tire, a limited slip is not the same as a locker which is what many of people are talking about when they say that both tires should spin together if you try to hold one in place and spin the other. Now that I have said all that before you say my diff was broke I can now spin BOTH tires at will and leave 2 strips of rubber EVERY time (trust me I did it alot this weekend)
in closing
now that you have everything turning smoothly put it all back together and fill the housing with 1.75 quarts of oil (I prefer mobil 1) put the car on the ground and go test drive to make sure everything is tight and there are no leaks
Overall I spent well more than the $110 the carrier cost me in reality I would say I spent close to $200 after buying ALL the bearings, seals, gear oil and seal puller. I also purchased a nice $70 torque wrench on top of the ~$200 I spent but I have been needing one of those for a while. I also replaced a few more things than most people do when performing this swap but I am one of those people that doesn't like doing a job over again. Total time for this project was probably around 4.5 - 5 hours but I work slow and I didn't realize I was going to need a slide hammer so part of that time was stopping to go rent one from Autozone. If I were to do this again I could probably do it in 3 hours now that I have a feel for everything.
I will keep an eye on this post to see how things go and add or subtract things as needed. On a side note if any of our members in Dallas or somewhere close to me are considering doing this swap and would like help and to really document this with pics so we can turn this into a good writeup for the board's tech section let know and maybe we can collaborate to give the community a good how-to article, let me know and we can work something out. (btw I do work for beer)
until then keep on rockin [img]graemlins/rock.gif[/img]
*special thanks to AZv6camaro for the torque specs*
[ March 09, 2004, 03:53 PM: Message edited by: black98V6 ]
Background: My car has 67k+miles and is a daily driver and my only transportation so I wanted to do this only once and made sure I had an entire weekend and a ride to the parts store should I need it. (and I did) Also because of the high mileage I also replaced the axle bearings and seals just to be on the safe side and it's cheap preventative maintenance. (cost for both bearings and seals ~$15).
Tools Used:
1. complete socket and wrench set though I proably used about 6 different sockets alltogether.
2. torque wrench for the ring gear bolts and the bearing caps.
3. seal puller (~$8 at any parts store) for the axle seals good cheap tool to have in your toolbox.
4. long screw driver or pry bar (used to get the carrier out without much trouble
5. slide hammer (you can rent these at autozone and they are used to pull the axle bearings, not needed if you aren't pulling the axle bearings)
6. Dremmel (used to cut off the old carrier bearing races)
7. 3lb sledge (aka the motivator)
8. block of wood (8"-10" piece of 2x4 comes in really handy for driving things on, goes between the hammer and whatever you are putting on)
9. small piece of metal pipe the size of the carrier bearing (used to seat bearings and seals and such)
Carrier Prep
well first off as several people have mentioned the bearings on the carrier as it comes from SLP are likely bent, nicked or generally beat up, as my car is relatively high mileage I had planned to not use them anyway so this wasn't a big deal.
IMO the best place to get new carrier bearings is through a timken dealer, this will usually be some kind of industrial parts store.
The timken part numbers are as follows:
LM501349- this is the bearing
LM501314- this is the outer race or the "cup"
together 2 of each of these cost me about $25 after tax at a local industrial parts store, the bearings were in stock but the race's had to be ordered, I kinda had a hookup so you may get charged a few dollars more but I wouldn't think they would be much more than $30. To locate a timken dealer go to find a timken distributor
Ok now that you have your new bearings time to get the old ones off, you got 2 approaches here take the whole thing to somebody and pay them or use/borrow a dremmel or something with a cutoff wheel. The bearing on the carrier consist of the bearing "cage" the aucutally roller bearings and the inner race which is what the rollers ride on and what is pressed onto the carrier. I first took the dremmel and cut the cage open removed that and the roller bearings this will happen fast and if you don't watch out bearings will go everywhere. Now you are left with just the carrier and the inner races, the best way I found was to take the dremmel and slowly cut in to the race keeping a constant eye on the depth of the cut because you really don't want to get into the carrier but just cut almost all the way through the race itself. A diagonal cut works well. Once you are satisfied with the depth of your cut and you really want to be most of the way through next you can make a second relief cut which will come out looking like you have cut something in the shape of a the letter "Y" in the race. I did this because I found it makes em come off fast and easy because the race has been so weakend.
Then take a hammer and punch (or old big screw driver in my case) set the carrier up on end and drive down on that upper part of the "y" cut you have made this should make the bearing crack all the way through then you can get it of fairly easily. On a side note I tried renting a 3 prong puller and it turns out the dremmel method is much easier and faster, takes maybe 10 minutes a side if you are going slow and watching your cuts closely.
Next to drive the bearing on I set the carrier on a piece of wood then set another piece of wood on top of the new bearing so I could hammer on the wood and drive the bearing on. Once I had the face of the bearing flush with the carrier I used that piece of pipe with a rag between it and the bearing to drive it on the last few thousandths into it's seat. This whole process might take you 30 minutes or as I said in the beginning you could take it to a machine shop and pay somebody but if you are reading this I guess you would want to do it yourself.
Alright so the carrier is ready for the gear transplant and install.
Install prep:
First you need to get the car in the air safely so that you have the vehicle supported by the frame and the axle hangs down. The first thing I did once the car was in the air was pull the diff cover and drain the oil. then pull off the tires, and calipers. I used some bailing wire to tie the calipers to the springs so they wouldn't hang by the lines which could damage them. Next remove the Disks (or drums if that's what you got). Mine were rusted into place so some pb blaster (rust dissolver) and the motivator came in quite handy here.
Old carrier removal
Now that we have the oil drained and the wheels and brakes off it's time to remove the carrier. First rotate the carrier until you see the small bolt which holds a verticle shaft in place. Take that bolt out and the shaft will easily slide out, at this point you can take out the spider gears which is what the shaft held in place if yours stay put so you can work don't worry about it. Mine got to be a pain so I removed them. you should now be able to push each axle in just a bit and then remove a "C" clip which is on the end of each axle, put these aside as you must re use them.
Next remove the bearing cap bolts. and pull the bearing caps off but first be sure to note the alignment of the tabs on the caps as they point outward separate the caps so you know which is for each side because you want to put them back where they came from.
Ok this carrier is in there tight, it's supposed to be that way. This is where the pry bar comes in handy. Rotate the carrier so one of the ring gear bolts is somewhat centered in the housing then take the pry bar and using the housing as a fulcrum and the bolt head as the point of contact pry the carrier out it should slide relatively easily depending on the size of your bar and how much leverage you have, do this slowly and easily as you don't want to drop and damage anything. Also pay attention to the shimms there will likely be one for each side separate them so you know which one is for which side these must go back in the way they came out.
Ok now you have the carrier out of the housing time to move the ring gear and abs reluctor ring to the new carrier. (on a side note if you have 3.08 gears disregard this part as this writeup is just for people doing a diff swap and you have alot of other stuff that must be done)
Ring gear and reluctor ring swap
first off the bolts on the ring gear are left hand threaded so you turn them left to tighten and right to loosen. I set the whole carrier on some wood with an old rag covering the wood to prevent damage to the ring gear or the abs ring. Place something long in the center of the carrier so it will only rotate so far then using a breakover bar or whatever break all the bolts loose. (a 4 foot cheater bar makes fast work of these bolts)
Now don't completey remove the bolts but get them out enough so that they are still in the gear by a rotation or 2 then take a block of wood and put it over the bolt heads and drive off the ring gear evenly. It doesn't take alot of force with a 3lb sledge but just mainly make sure you are driving the gear off evenly. Now observe the way the reluctor ring is on the carrier maybe even mark the right or left side of it so you know how it is going on the new carrier. And again using the block of wood to prevent damage to the reluctor ring, knock it off the housing it doesn't take much force to do this.
Now put the reluctor ring on the new carrier the same way it came off the old one and put the ring gear on top of that and thread the bolts on as best you can by hand. Next slowly a few turns at a time tighten the bolts using some sort of star pattern to "pull" the gear on the carrier evenly. Eventually things will get fairly tight and it will be time to break out the torque wrench. Using much the same method to hold the carrier in place as you used to break the bolts loose use the torque wrench to finally tighten the bolts to 89 ft/lbs. Once you have done this it's time to put the carrier back into place.
carrier reinstallation
Alright now it's time to start putting things back. The first thing I did was put the driver side shim in it's place. next I slid the bearing races "cups" over the bearings after applying a coating of grease on each one (this kinda helps hold things in place also helps to put it on the shims to hold them in place also). Now slide the whole unit into place, it will not go very far before your efforts pushing become useless. Now it's time to drive that sucker in. Using your trusty block of wood and hammer slowly drive the carrier in being sure to watch the shim that isn't already in place and try to get it to go in evenly with the carrier. eventually everything should line up and the carrier will be in place. Now go ahead and put the bearing caps on and if you are happy with everything torque them down to 55 ft/lbs.
axle seal and bearing replacement
if you aren't doing this just jump down to the next section
first off you have to get rid of the seal the best way to do that is to use the seal puller and with a good firm yank it will come right out. You should now be looking at the axle bearing. The best way I saw to take these out was with a slide hammer, (if you have never used a tool like this before it's not tough but with a little common sense and safety you should be good to go). It is going to take a bit of muscle but the bearings come out without much fanfare, except for the fact that you might tear the actual roller bearings and cage out and be left with just the race to pull if that's what happens no big deal just make sure there are no rollers left inside the axle housing before reinstalling. Next set the new bearing in place and drive it home using that same piece of pipe you used to set the carrier bearing, feel around the back of the bearing to tell when it is seated properly. Next press the seal in place and using either a bock of wood or that piece of pipe drive it in place so that it's even (I also put a film of grease on the bearings and the rubber part of the seal so the axle slides in and out better.
completion
Now go ahead and slide your axles back in the housing and be kinda careful as you don't want to knick anything, it may take a turn in one direction or another to get the axle to go all the way into the carrier, get under the car and slide each "c" clip back in place and then slide the axle back out till it catches. You are now ready to install the block which holds the axles in place in the carrier, side it home ( on a side note there is a right way and a wrong way to do this if the block won't go all the way in pull it out rotate 180 degrees and try again). Next put the keeper bolt in place and your new diff is now assembled. Before doing anything else do yourself a favor and give everything a spin and make sure it's all smooth.
THIS IS AN IMPORTANT NOTE
I know many people on the board have talked about jacking the car up and spinning one tire and how the other one should spin if the car has a limited slip diff this is UNTRUE if you are using a torsen diff this simply will not work that way. after reinstalling the tires and having everything in place with the car on jack stands (this is kinda dangerous by the way but my car was very very secure) I put the car in gear and let the tires spin with the motor at idle they were not spinning fast at all I could grab one tire and hold it while the other one spun freely however the diff was working and I could feel it catching and trying to turn the tire but my hold was greater than the amount of torque being transferred see it's like this the diff can only transfer a portion of the torque which is being sent through the drive line and there is no way you are going to produce enough with your hands spinning the tire or with the car at idle in this case to overcome the hold you can put on the tire, a limited slip is not the same as a locker which is what many of people are talking about when they say that both tires should spin together if you try to hold one in place and spin the other. Now that I have said all that before you say my diff was broke I can now spin BOTH tires at will and leave 2 strips of rubber EVERY time (trust me I did it alot this weekend)
in closing
now that you have everything turning smoothly put it all back together and fill the housing with 1.75 quarts of oil (I prefer mobil 1) put the car on the ground and go test drive to make sure everything is tight and there are no leaks
Overall I spent well more than the $110 the carrier cost me in reality I would say I spent close to $200 after buying ALL the bearings, seals, gear oil and seal puller. I also purchased a nice $70 torque wrench on top of the ~$200 I spent but I have been needing one of those for a while. I also replaced a few more things than most people do when performing this swap but I am one of those people that doesn't like doing a job over again. Total time for this project was probably around 4.5 - 5 hours but I work slow and I didn't realize I was going to need a slide hammer so part of that time was stopping to go rent one from Autozone. If I were to do this again I could probably do it in 3 hours now that I have a feel for everything.
I will keep an eye on this post to see how things go and add or subtract things as needed. On a side note if any of our members in Dallas or somewhere close to me are considering doing this swap and would like help and to really document this with pics so we can turn this into a good writeup for the board's tech section let know and maybe we can collaborate to give the community a good how-to article, let me know and we can work something out. (btw I do work for beer)
until then keep on rockin [img]graemlins/rock.gif[/img]
*special thanks to AZv6camaro for the torque specs*
[ March 09, 2004, 03:53 PM: Message edited by: black98V6 ]
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