Got this buttoned up last night.
For the rear Ford 9"(9 inch)
Freeze your pinion gear, bake your bearing(or put a torch on the inner ring). This will allow the bearing to slide on without much force, no press required.
Freeze your carrier, bake you ring gear. Same thing, will allow you to get the two together with much less hassle.
Pinion nut torque spec is 175 ft/lbs, but you are shooting for 7-10 in/lbs in bearing preload. I started at 150 ft/lbs and checked the preload every 5 ft/lbs thereafter till I got the right spec. Landed around 160 ft/lbs on the pinion nut. This is deforming the crush sleeve until the right preload is achieved.
Torque Spec
Ring gear 65-80
Bearing caps 70-85
Adjuster nut Locks 12-25
Pinion housing 30-45
Carrier to housing 30-45
Carrier bearing preload is called out as case spread of around .008. I am guessing that is the deflection side to side allowed by the adjusters. I've seen other say make em tight, so that's what I did. Get the right backlash dialed in with the adjusters tight, then tighten the far side adjusted one more hole.
Right or wrong, I put red loctite on all internal bolts.
All said and done, it took about 3 hours to go from bare case, assembled differential and both gears on the bench to installed and on the ground. If I were starting from scratch, and had not already been through this exercise twice, I figure it would take about 4-5 hours per axle for a first timer; including time looking up torque specs, finding tools, drinking beer, etc.
If I ever have to do this again, I'll pull the axles, do the work, then reinstall the axles. I think that would be time well spent vs fighting stuff under the bronco.
