I have a 10 bolt and my yoke is soaked with gear oil and dripping on the ground, so I want to replace my pinion seal. I had a shop install new gears and bearings about 10 years ago. I followed my manual and removed my rear drums and driveshaft, then borrowed a friends snap on inch-pound dial torque wrench. The manual said to measure the preload on the pinion nut before removing. I am getting between 1.5 and 2 inch pounds on the dial as I slowly turn the wrench. Thats with the differential and axles still installed. Are my bearing bad? My manual said used bearings should be around 10 in lbs. Thanks

 

You can't measure pinion bearing preload with the differential installed. Too many other things creating drag.


Many times a pinion seal will leak because the pinion nut backed off. If this is the case then measuring the preload is completely useless. Put a torque wrench on it and set it to 150 foot pounds. See if the nut gets tighter. If the nut doesn't move then you have other problems.

 

Agreed - for seal replacement just set the nut to 150 Ft/lbs. This is enough to keep things tight but not cause additional crush on the crush sleeve. It's usually around 20in/lbs for new bearings, and 5 - 10in/lbs for used bearings. But to check it you should remove the carrier (and driveshaft obviously).

Rick

 

Yep, the nut started moving under 100 foot pounds. I'm going to tear everything out and check the bearings.