u-joint/rear diff

[SteveL]

Got a 456 rear on the bench that is set up and good. Gonna swap it to an arb. The pinion yoke is larger size than the eb. My question is do I swap the yoke to eb size (have spares laying around) or set it up with larger yoke and run the adapter u-joint. My buddy helping doesn't want to mess with pinion but I would rather have a stock u-joint. Any advantage either way? Also right now I have a 77 rear with warn floater kit,spool, disc brake with drive flanges on the bronco. I also have in garage another 77 rear with disc and moly shafts. Which set up is better when we do the swap to arb? Also running 35s if makes,a difference

 

[SteveL]

Nothing?

 

[DirtDonk]

Nope.

 

[DirtDonk]

Actually, of course there is!
I would go with Plan-B right off the bat, and use an adapter joint. You could consider it more of a quick fix to get you on the road, since you're not messing with the driveshaft in any way and can easily go back to a stock joint if and when you get around to swapping the yokes.

I'm sure someone will chime in though, with how hard (if at all) it is to reset the gears with the new yoke. I think it's only a matter of torquing for proper preload, but it's probably harder to tell just how accurate you are with all the rest of the setup complete.
But people swap yokes all the time, so maybe it's not really an issue at all.

But to my mind, both of your choices are valid. And you should do what you prefer when you can. So sticking with stock joints is a good goal. Just saying you don't have to lose one option when temporarily doing the other.

Paul

 

[SteveL]

We don't know if the one on the bench is solid spacer or crush sleeve. Worried about changing pinion depth and preload if crush sleeve. Also heard concerns over ff axles. That's got me wondering if I should swap to other rear with moly axles.