Gear change and Spartan Locker Install

[bbow]

front end is still in pieces. some on the floor, some on the bench, none on the bronco. Haven't been able to work on it since my son was born, 5 months ago. Weather is starting to turn nice again so I have a little more incentive to get it done.

Congratulations on your new addition.


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[Teal68]

Congratulations on your new addition.


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Ditto! So cool! I look forward to meeting more of the family in the future at SOWEGA get togethers!

BBOW, the lunchbox lockers are a breeze. More than happy to walk you thru one if interested. Even if you have to remove the ring gear it's pretty straight forward. You might want to do the front only though if you drive the Bronc' on the street at all.

Tyler

 

[bbow]

Ditto! So cool! I look forward to meeting more of the family in the future at SOWEGA get togethers!



BBOW, the lunchbox lockers are a breeze. More than happy to walk you thru one if interested. Even if you have to remove the ring gear it's pretty straight forward. You might want to do the front only though if you drive the Bronc' on the street at all.



Tyler

I bought front and rear. I don't drive that much on the street and quiet tired of you boys having to tug me out. I wanna be able to break axles and u-joints (no ribs) like the rest of you.


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[Teal68]

I bought front and rear. I don't drive that much on the street and quiet tired of you boys having to tug me out. I wanna be able to break axles and u-joints (no ribs) like the rest of you.


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Funny! I don't want to break any of them....especially ribs! That said I'm running a Spartan in my D30....We shall see!

 

[lonesouth]

glad I took a pic of those pinion preload shims. I cleaned up the garage this weekend and wasn't sure what they were for. And, now that the garage is clean, and my generator is mostly installed, I can get back to this in the evenings after the kids go down.

 

[DirtDonk]

I think you said in the first page that your rear is a factory limited-slip? If so, you may need to find an open diff to install the locker in. Unless yours works in a limited-slip case too?
Never heard of one that did, but the Spartan is newer and I'm not as familar with it.

Paul

 

[lonesouth]

I've got an open rear diff with 4.11 gears to swap in.

 

[Justafordguy]

I wanna be able to break axles and u-joints (no ribs) like the rest of you.

HEY wait a minute! I resemble that remark. ;D

 

[lonesouth]

got a bit done last night. Diff is installed, need to adjust pinion depth to get the mesh in the middle. Right now, the drive side is showing shallow pinion depth and the coast side is showing deep, the paint that rubbed off of the pinion onto virgin teeth looked perfect though. Backlash is right at .07.

Pattern is showing the bottom left of the acceptable patterns shown at this link.
https://www.ringpinion.com/Content/Book/Reading-and-Adjusting-Ring-and-Pinion-Tooth-Patterns.pdf

going to move forward putting it all back together.

 

[Justafordguy]

Glad to hear you are making some progress, what diff did you work on, front or rear?

 

[lonesouth]

front first, rear next. Trying to locate a pair of .005 carrier shims for preload to finish the front.

 

[okie4570]

front first, rear next. Trying to locate a pair of .005 carrier shims for preload to finish the front.

When I installed my Spartan, I just pulled the carrier and ring, and not the pinion. Knocked out the spider gears and installed the locker. There was zero room to install the locker in the carrier with any shims on either side. Reinstalled the carrier, painted up the ring gear and my pattern was good.

 

[lonesouth]

I'm regearing at the same time. If this were just the spartan install, I wouldn't have messed with shims at all, and probably would have kept the bearings.

 

[okie4570]

I'm regearing at the same time. If this were just the spartan install, I wouldn't have messed with shims at all, and probably would have kept the bearings.

Gotcha, I didn't catch that. I was really happy with the Spartan in the front at OCBR. It was like a completely different bronco.

 

[lonesouth]

Got the front diff installed, everything is torqued, and I'm ready to finish the front end. I won't claim it as a professional level install, but I'm betting it will last longer than I keep the bronco. Those inner axle seals are PITA.

I started working on the rear and came to an abrupt stop. What I thought was an open carrier, turned out to be another trac-lok. I found an open carrier on ebay for $25 shipped, so I'll have a few days till I get the rear done.

 

[lonesouth]

Passenger side is put back together. Took about 3 hours to degrease everything, spindle, axle, hub parts, and get it all put back together.

Couple of things to be aware of:

1. there is no inner axle seal on the end of the axle tube, i.e. where the axle exits the tube, not the differential side. There is a slinger which is supposed to keep large debris out. Many people will remove these since they also keep in whatever does get past them. Since there is an axle seal where the axle enters the differential housing, it isn't a big deal if you have the slinger or not.

2. When reassembling the hub, use a prybar or screwdriver against the axle u-joint area to press the axle outward in order to get the snapring onto the end of the axle shaft.

3. Assembly order is brake backing plate, dust shield, spindle

4. There are two different sized bearings that go behind the hub. The big one should slide all the way down onto the spindle.

5. There is no seal behind the spindle bearing. The seals on the outer axle shaft seal this area.

If I have to do this again, I think I will pull the whole axle and work on it standing up, instead of on a creeper under the bronco.

 

[lonesouth]

Got all the prep done on the driver side last night. Got the spindle and was about to put the hub/rotor on when I asked myself, "What keeps the dirt and water from getting in behind the bearing between the spindle and hub?" Yea, took me a few minutes to realize that I did not get those seals when I ordered everything else. Reaching a stopping point on the reassembly, I disassembled the passenger side so that I can put the seal in.

 

[DirtDonk]

Good info and thanks for formatting it out.
Couple of additional comments in BLUE.

...Couple of things to be aware of:

2. When reassembling the hub, use a prybar or screwdriver against the axle u-joint area to press the axle outward in order to get the snapring onto the end of the axle shaft.

Additional info: Not all will be able to reinstall the snap-ring. Depending on the combination of hub and lockout, even prying outward on the shaft may not be enough.

3. Assembly order is brake backing plate, dust shield, spindle

Additional info: With GM based disc brakes, the spindle goes on first.

5. There is no seal behind the spindle bearing. The seals on the outer axle shaft seal this area.

Additional info: Certain year Dana fronts actually do have a pressed-in seal on the back of the spindle. Most however, do seem to have the floating seals you describe.

The additional comments are about covering some other possible variations. You might add a comment in your next post, or just edit and add to your last one, the year and model of your new axles, if you know.
We can see the year of your Bronco in your sig, but if I remember from the first post, you picked up these that you're rebuilding separately? If that's the case, did you ever mention what year they were from?

Paul

 

[lonesouth]

Axles are stock 1977 with stock disc brakes and hubs, I'm only rebuilding the differentials.

 

[DirtDonk]

Gotcha, thanks. That should make it easier to keep track of the little things.

Paul