8-3/4 open diff whining, wheels binding, pulled axle shafts, problem...disappears?

[Cranky]

Here's a pic of the shaft that the spiders ride on along with the thrust spacer that comes in the cone type Sure Grip but the setup is very similar to what's in the open unit too. There's no way the center thrust space can come out of one of these unless something breaks. It's trapped by the spider gear cross shaft which is trapped by the carrier case. Not so with the clutch type. Over tightening of the axle end play can break the roll pin that holds the very small 2 piece thrust spacer together and fall out of place but we're dealing with an open unit here....

 

[threewood]

I'm not certain when they changed to the button but on the 741 open I replaced there was a piece of square stock retained by the side gears. No way it could come out.

Did you ever have the pinion yoke off? They have thin shims that set endplay. I took mine off to replace the pinion seal and found remains of a shim. Torqued the nut back and everything was tight. Pulled it, measured the shim piece, and added one the same size. Spun great after that. Should be able to hand spin the pinion with both axles in.

 

[cudak888]

Time for the moment everyone has been waiting for - the full report following diagnosis, with a complete play-by-play of "what happened in the shop today:"

With the axles on, I checked the pinion (at the yoke) for excessive slack in the third member with the wheels and axles on, transmission in neutral. Overall slack/slop was about 2-3 degrees at the driveshaft; no excessive play to be found here. Ditto for yoke slack - didn't really budge at all when pulled back and forth or side to side.

Left wheel was still binding, but the drum came off pretty smoothly. However, before pulling the wheel, I was able to hear the pads rubbing the drum when rotating the wheel in the air. Also, on teardown - before removing the rear axles - the binding was not present with the drums removed on both sides.

Back to the brakes in a moment - at this point, I pulled the axles.

With the axles out, I checked the third member again, at the yoke. No binding, rotated really nicely. I re-greased the wheel bearings, reinstalled the left axle, then reinstalled the right, and set end play based on the factory specs. It might have been a bit loose initially; at any rate, it is now set with about .015" end play.

The drum self adjusters on both sides are new, but didn't adjust very well as nobody had ever put any brake grease on the threads. I rectified that, and reassembled them with just enough adjustment to get the shoes near the drums, but not touching (figured I'd let the adjusters do that on their own when I back up). The left was still rubbing just a tad even though it was retracted quite a bit - my guess is that the drums are original and completely out of radius with the new shoes that were installed.

At any rate, it now behaved itself in gear off the ground, so I took it for a test drive. Noise is completely gone, and coasting is now a frictionless affair in both noise and feel.

So that's done. Unfortunately, the transplanted 360 seems to be falling on its face as far as torque/acceleration is concerned. Lots of noise, but it doesn't do much. Also found the gas tank leaking quite a bit at the bottom of the sender gasket. And those things will soon become a whole 'nother story...

EDIT: Kickdown linkage is not pushing proper line pressure. Finally decided to ditch this crap and go Lokar; hell with originality under the hood.

-Kurt