Well I took the old girl out of storage last week and on my way home..after driving at 60 on the freeway for about 30 min. when I took my foot off the pedel...i hear a howling sound like gear sound...pretty loud to. I got home and the next day drove it around town and it sounded fine. Drove it all week to work and back and again it sounded fine. Today I drive on the hwy again about 15 miles and same thing when i coast the nose is there but doesn't seem as much as the first time. So on my way home from the wedding..let my foot off and man oh man what a horid sound. Also felt a little vibration at 60 mph. I pulled off at a friends house and just into his driveway it almost seems to kind of lock up so to speak and it seems to do it in gear, out of gear and coasting. Well I put it up on stands and start it, put it in gear and it again makes that grinding sound. As near as I can tell it is from the rear end. I spun the tire and it moves free but then gets hard to spin. Also found gear oil leaking out of the pinion seal. Im guessing she ran out of oil and blew some bearing or what not. The salvage yard has one out of a 91 Firebird w/46k miles for 350.00 or one from a 92 camaro 152k for 200.00..both say 3.23 on the discription, Im guessing that the gear ratio? Does anyone have advice on what one to get and any pointers and swaping them out? I looked it over and it doesn't seem like there is much involved. I am guessing I should pick up a spring compressor as well. Any advice from you folks would rock. Nice to be back on the msg boards again.

 

You don't need a spring compressor for rear springs, IIRC you just need to install the springs before the shocks. If your going from a drum rear to a drum rear, it should be very easy, but it might be a bit more involved if you're going from drum to disc, or disc to disc.

If 3.23 is in the description, that should be the ratio.

 

thanks Greg..I'm just going to put one with drums back on it. Any thoughts on the miles and cost of the one from the salvage yard... Like the one with 150k on it..for 200.00...how long does a rear end go miles wise? I know the one that is in it is a posi style..Can I tell if the new one is a posi by looking at it w/o opening up the cover?

 

There should be a tag identifying it as a posi.
Don't judge them just by the miles, the one that came out of my car had 180,000+, and was in horrible condition, but I swapped one in that had 141,xxx, and it was in excellent condition.
Cost... $200 is too much, you can most likely find a cheaper one locally.

http://spokane.craigslist.org/pts/1215859761.html
http://spokane.craigslist.org/pts/1210136534.html

 

Straight swap then. Don't forget, however, that if you change ratios, you'll need to swap the drive and/or driven gears to make the speedo ready correctly. The following link may provide some useful info:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tran...-10-bolts.html

JamesC

 

Either the pinion nut backed off or you had a pinion bearing go bad in the original rear end. That is why you had the leak, because the pinion shaft was not being held in place by the bearings. It's a pretty comon thing.

 

Cool thanks for all the help fellas. I'm off to go get the new rearend.

 

I agree with big gear head. neither are hard to remedy.

 

thanks again everyone. got the new one in and all is well. spedo even reads right.