In my manual it says that you need a special tool to hold the yoke while removing the nut. But after futher investigation I found that the nut doesn't have that much torque on it. So what I did was placed the rear tires on ramps this way the yoke wouldn't turn while attempting to remove the nut, and it came off with little effort, it only had about 30-35ft lbs on it. I'm not worried with the way I did it but why would the recommend this big breaker bar type tool to hold the yoke? By looking at the tool I expected the nut to have over 100 ft lbs on it. Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought they had a lot of torque on them.


Mark

 

depending on what rear end it is they have around 25 in/lbs of preload on the pinion bearings, doesn't sound like much but on a 12 bolt i use a 6' handel to tighten the pinion nut, the 7.5 10 bolts i use a 3/4" ratchet or breaker bar. you need the tool more to hold the yoke when you put the nut back on. you should on measured how far on the pinion it set and match marked it so you get it back in the same place for the correct preload.

 

Don't confuse preload with torque to tighten the pinion nut, it can take up to 300 foot pounds to start crushing a new crush sleeve, you won't be able to hold it with the wheels on the ground and the parking brake on.

 

I use a piece of about 1" x 1/8" strip stock about 3' long, with 2 holes near one edge to bolt to the yoke far enough over to the side so it doesn't get in the way of a socket on the nut, to hold the yoke still to tighten the nut. I believe ede has a somewhat similar rig but he can tell you how his is made himself if he wants to. It takes alot less torque to remove the nut from a used rear end (especially if it's already started to whine) than it does to put on a new one.

The way to tighten it is to torque the nut until it takes about 10 or 12 inch-pounds to turn the pinion in its bearings, regardless of how much torque you have to put on the nut. The idea is to get about .015" of preload on the 2 pinion bearings. The crush sleeve will crush (duh) as you tighten the nut, and then its natural crush force should provide the retaining force on the nut. As the nut tightens, the distance between the bearings decreases until there is no slack, then you keep tightening until there's "negative" slack up to the point of the desired preload in the bearings.

 

mine didn't have a crush sleeve only a washer under the nut. I match marked the nut before removing it and when installing the nut I tightened it 1/16" past the mark I made.

 

The crush sleeve is behind the front pinion bearing.

 

since rb mentioned my home made tool i'll tell what i have. it's a piece if 1/4" x 3" x 45" steel. i used transfer punch to transfer the holes from the pinion yoke to the steel then drilled the holes. used a hole saw to make a hole in the center for a socket to fit. painted it red stuck a richmond decal on it, looks pretty good. it's long enough that i have made several sets of holes in it for differant yokes without it getting too short.