How do you do it? Can anyone give me detailed instructions? I blew the rear end in my Iroc due to a unknown seal leak. Should I replace the whole unit with a $150.00 junkyard rear our swap in a 4th gen rear, or fix the old one legger?

 

buy yourself a new seal for $10 and fix whats broken in your rear, thats the cheapest thing to do. Seeing as how you have an IROC you originally had 26 spline axles. If you have 28, I have a one legger differential with bearings you can have for ten bucks. Have you taken the cover off to examine the damage yet?

If your gears are shot then you might as well pick up a junkyard rear for a hundred bucks or so cause it's going to cost you more then that to buy gears.

 

No, I'm scared of the differential. I never looked in it. I don't have a clue how it all works. The initial conditions of how it happened.... Made noise for about a week, thought it was a hung up brake shoe. Got progressively louder, then let go and went bang, bang, bang! Stopped driving it at this point, called AAA. Loaded it on a flat bed to home. At home rear locks and wont let car roll of truck..... finally lets go with a lound metallic PANG! That's what happened.... how do I trouble shoot when I don't know how it works. I'm pretty much car stupid.... if it does'nt bolt on the same way it came off I'm screwed....

 

Sounds like you welded your internals together, lol. If you feel comfortable getting a junkyard rear and putting it in yourself, do that. If not, tow it to a shop you trust and have them look at it. Make sure you can trust them, it's easy for shops to tell you that it should be rebuilt simply because it will accumulate the most labor.

 

Well I get a 30 day warranty on all junk yard rears, but I'm not sure how to go about swapping these puppies out.... Can you give me some instruction?

 

If you wanna swap the entire rear end (wheel to wheel), it's not too difficult - you put the car up, disconnect the shocks & brake lines, take out all the bolts & disconnect at the driveshaft. Then bolt the new one back in & bleed your rear brakes. Takes a while cause some of those bolts are tighter than hell, but simple in theory - get a Chilton's or a Haynes manual. They have step by step instructions (cause I may have forgotten a step or two...).

 

you dont want to mess with the inside of the rear without knowing what your doing or having someone who does around to help. Sounds like you busted up the spider gears.

Swapping in a junk rear is pretty easy....unbolt the old one and bolt in the new one, make sure the differential is full of fresh oil. Just take the cover off, drain, put in a new gasket and fill, put cover back on...less than 10 bucks, cheap insurance.

Make sure the rear you get is out of a 3rd gen...so the torque arm mounts up and then make sure you know what gear ratio it is...ideally you'll want the same gear as you had or your speedo will be off.

 

Rear has been replaced. $150.00 for the rear, and $430.00 for the installation, including swapping my brand new brake parts, and installing new seal, and fluid. Thanx for the help! Reason why old rear went.... the pinion gear shed a few teeth and hosed everything up.

 

OMFG I didn't know a shop gets that much to swap a rear. I'll tell ya, I'm in the wrong buisness.

 

Yeah considering I did mine in 1.5 hrs and that was drum to disc, even-swapped out the prop. valve. My ***, did they cuddle with ya and kiss you good-bye before you left?!
Damn, I sure hope they lubed first!!!

 

Ouch! I used to swap out rears all the time as part of a side business, and I only charged $100!!! Granted they were disc cars, so no shoes to fight with, but still... I felt bad charging that even, because I could do it by myself in 45 minutes!

 

Sheez! Will you all stop? There were many other places that wanted more! I went with the shop I trusted and that gave me a decent price. Where I live is a high cost of living. Labor alone is very $$$ expensive. Give me a break will ya? I could'nt do it myself, don't have many friends here to help, and could'nt do it in my apartment parking lot.

 

We're just bustin your ***** a little, it's just that when you here of someone getting the screws put to 'em it makes ya feel kinda bad. I'm in the mid-west where the economy is'nt that great to begin with, especially the town I live in, so when I first heard that price I about ****, then laughed. I consider myself fortunate to grow up and have the background and experience, plus all the tools, shop area, buddies, & business contacts to back me up. If ya did the best you could do at the time so be it, cause I'm sure there is'nt a member on this board that has'nt took it in the *** at least a time or two.