This is a long one.
I hope this is interesting to you. Last night I started changing my front gears on my low Dana 30 differential. It was late, and I was by myself. I completed this change by myself. I only say that because you can do this by yourself. I did it with some basic tools. I don't have any special tools per se (ie no car lift, or press, etc) with the exception of a few that I will go over, and my garage doesn't have electicity. It is being run by a 100 ft extention cord from my house. I have a small air compressor, and a few low end specialty diff tools.
I want to show what I did this weekend with some pics and instructions. Hopefully uncover the black box that is the front differential. Please feel free to ask questions or just enjoy reading. I am also not going to explain how to remove the axles to save you from reading stuff you probably already know how to do, and if you don't you probably aren't going to takle a gear swap anyway.
I lifted my TJ up in the front, and put the jack stands under the front diff tubes. I then removed the tires, and the axles on both sides. I removed the cover and drained the fluid. I had 3:73 gears with an open diff. I am putting in 4:56 with an E-Locker.
Once the front cover was removed, I pulled the bearing caps marking them, so they go back on in the same way and direction they were removed. To remove the carrier I had to drop the tie rod on the driver side to get it out of the way. I just let it rest on the floor. You will see this in pictures. I removed the carrier, then moved to the front of the diff and removed the drive line from the yoke then I removed the pinion nut and yoke. I tapped the pinion out, and removed the pinion seal. Once all of the gears, were removed I thoroughly cleaned the pumpkin with two cans of brake cleaner. I then, knocked the axle seals out with long extensions from the tubes, I sanded the tubes slightly to tap the new axle seals in. I tapped them in with a 36in deep impact socket. I greased the rubber, and moved on.
First things first, I needed to remove the pinion bearing on the pinion to get the shim off off behind the bearing. I have a bearing splitter for that. You will see it in the picture. Don't throw the bearing away you will need it later. To remove the bearing I put the splitter on as tight as I could then I tapped it with a hammer and just kept tightening it till the bearing was almost off, then I turned the pinion over, and tapped the splitter and bearing off with the hammer.
I grabbed the new pinion and put the shim on it. I took from the old bearing, I just pulled off and cut the cage off and removed all of the bearings, so all that is left is the inner race. I took a carbide tip and die grinder to hone out the center of the old bearing to use to beat on the new bearing. I put some Hyperlube on the inside of the race of the new bearing, and set it on the pinion. then took the old race and turned it upside down, so the two inner races match. then I used an old style jack stand tube, and beat the new bearing over the stock shim on the new pinion, beating it while it was sitting on a chunk of wood.
Then I set the pinion aside and moved onto the carrier. The new carrier bearings are bigger than stock so the stock shims don't work, so you have to shim it on the outside of the bearings. I happen to have two sockets that fit the inner race of the bearings perfectly, so on the same piece of wood I used Hyperlube on the inside of the bearing race, and pounded the first bearing on using a hammer and the socket. I turned the carrier over and set the new bearing on the socket where it matched the inner race, and then using the same sized socket pounded on the second bearing as not to put any pressure on the bearing cages.
On the E-locker you have to pull a clip, and remove the electric module to get the ring on. I put the new ring gear on. This is really the only iffy part on my part that I did, and not real proud of, but I couldn't think of any other way to do this. I had no way to torque the ring gear. I had no way to hold it by myself and torque it down, So I used a 100ft lb torque bar to bolt the ring gear in. I know my compressor isn't strong enough with my gun to get 100ft lb out of it, so I used the torque bar to get it started then ran the gun around to give it another quick tightness. I don't suggest this, If you are doing this at home, I would go to a shop or somewhere that has a big vice or buy a big vise, but mine wasn't big enough. Technicality I torqued mine down level then tightened it a little more, so my torque may not be perfect, but I did a pattern, and it matched all of the way around, so I am happy but again, I don't recommend this. I am pretty talented with an air tool so maybe my torque spec might be a little higher or little lower, but they will all be consistent. I will re-check it in 500 miles to make sure it is tight. I was doing this in the middle of the night, and didn't want to stop, so I motored on.
I put the electric module back on and the clip, and grabbed the shims, and started looking for the right combination. This is kind of tricky, but take your time, and don't be afraid to remove and put in the carrier as many times as you need to to get this right. I put the same amount of shims on both sides to start with. and put the carrier in. Of course it went in easy and was too tight to the pinion. Had no backlash. I only had So I removed 10thousandths on the passenger side and added it to the left side till I got my right backlash using a dial indicator and a caliper to measure the shims. Once I got the backlash correct I added the same sized shims to both sides to get a preload on the carrier bearings. This is a good time to do a pattern check. Once you have it right, you should have about 5 ticks of backlash on the scale, and it should be some what hard, but not impossible to install and remove the carrier.
Once you get the carrier shims you need, pull the carrier back out and the pinion. At this point I filled the pumpkin with t-shirts and drilled the half inch hole for wire harness. I cleaned all of the shavings out and then installed all of the new pinion bearings and slingers, and pinion, crushing the sleeve to 25 inch pounds. This is another tricky part, as I am not strong enough to crush the sleeve, nor is my lacking air compressor. I had to put a pipe wrench on the yoke, and put the socket on a breaker bar, and use the floor jack to turn the nut slowly. This actually took me a couple hours to do by myself. This is really the toughest part of the job if you don't have a good gun or compressor. But I was successful in the end.
Now that you have the pinion in, and set the carrier in with the shims you used previously, and re-checked the backlash and re-shimmed if necessary, once you have the magic shims correct, and the carrier is installed and the caps torqued correctly, check the patter one last time. If your pattern is good, then you are done, close it up and put the axle back together, and don't forget to re-fill the diff with some 80-90 gear oil.
This wasn't really written to use to rebuild your diff, but rather use as a reference. Also to hopefully open up the black box, so maybe re-gearing is not so scary. With basic tools this took me two days to do. If you have better tools and lift it can be done quite a bit faster, but I just wanted to prove I can do it in my backyard.
Here are the special tools I used.
Cheap air compressor:
Here are tools that I used but not necessarily these brand names. I am not promoting these tools just showing what I used is all.
Calipers
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014DEXNM/?tag=wranglerorg-20
Dial indicator with vise grips
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009B017LQ/?tag=wranglerorg-20
AND
Inch pound torque wrench
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000KKXOQC/?tag=wranglerorg-20
These are the only special tools I used.
I hope this was worth while, and it may be long, but there were pictures!
I hope this is interesting to you. Last night I started changing my front gears on my low Dana 30 differential. It was late, and I was by myself. I completed this change by myself. I only say that because you can do this by yourself. I did it with some basic tools. I don't have any special tools per se (ie no car lift, or press, etc) with the exception of a few that I will go over, and my garage doesn't have electicity. It is being run by a 100 ft extention cord from my house. I have a small air compressor, and a few low end specialty diff tools.
I want to show what I did this weekend with some pics and instructions. Hopefully uncover the black box that is the front differential. Please feel free to ask questions or just enjoy reading. I am also not going to explain how to remove the axles to save you from reading stuff you probably already know how to do, and if you don't you probably aren't going to takle a gear swap anyway.
I lifted my TJ up in the front, and put the jack stands under the front diff tubes. I then removed the tires, and the axles on both sides. I removed the cover and drained the fluid. I had 3:73 gears with an open diff. I am putting in 4:56 with an E-Locker.
Once the front cover was removed, I pulled the bearing caps marking them, so they go back on in the same way and direction they were removed. To remove the carrier I had to drop the tie rod on the driver side to get it out of the way. I just let it rest on the floor. You will see this in pictures. I removed the carrier, then moved to the front of the diff and removed the drive line from the yoke then I removed the pinion nut and yoke. I tapped the pinion out, and removed the pinion seal. Once all of the gears, were removed I thoroughly cleaned the pumpkin with two cans of brake cleaner. I then, knocked the axle seals out with long extensions from the tubes, I sanded the tubes slightly to tap the new axle seals in. I tapped them in with a 36in deep impact socket. I greased the rubber, and moved on.
First things first, I needed to remove the pinion bearing on the pinion to get the shim off off behind the bearing. I have a bearing splitter for that. You will see it in the picture. Don't throw the bearing away you will need it later. To remove the bearing I put the splitter on as tight as I could then I tapped it with a hammer and just kept tightening it till the bearing was almost off, then I turned the pinion over, and tapped the splitter and bearing off with the hammer.
I grabbed the new pinion and put the shim on it. I took from the old bearing, I just pulled off and cut the cage off and removed all of the bearings, so all that is left is the inner race. I took a carbide tip and die grinder to hone out the center of the old bearing to use to beat on the new bearing. I put some Hyperlube on the inside of the race of the new bearing, and set it on the pinion. then took the old race and turned it upside down, so the two inner races match. then I used an old style jack stand tube, and beat the new bearing over the stock shim on the new pinion, beating it while it was sitting on a chunk of wood.
Then I set the pinion aside and moved onto the carrier. The new carrier bearings are bigger than stock so the stock shims don't work, so you have to shim it on the outside of the bearings. I happen to have two sockets that fit the inner race of the bearings perfectly, so on the same piece of wood I used Hyperlube on the inside of the bearing race, and pounded the first bearing on using a hammer and the socket. I turned the carrier over and set the new bearing on the socket where it matched the inner race, and then using the same sized socket pounded on the second bearing as not to put any pressure on the bearing cages.
On the E-locker you have to pull a clip, and remove the electric module to get the ring on. I put the new ring gear on. This is really the only iffy part on my part that I did, and not real proud of, but I couldn't think of any other way to do this. I had no way to torque the ring gear. I had no way to hold it by myself and torque it down, So I used a 100ft lb torque bar to bolt the ring gear in. I know my compressor isn't strong enough with my gun to get 100ft lb out of it, so I used the torque bar to get it started then ran the gun around to give it another quick tightness. I don't suggest this, If you are doing this at home, I would go to a shop or somewhere that has a big vice or buy a big vise, but mine wasn't big enough. Technicality I torqued mine down level then tightened it a little more, so my torque may not be perfect, but I did a pattern, and it matched all of the way around, so I am happy but again, I don't recommend this. I am pretty talented with an air tool so maybe my torque spec might be a little higher or little lower, but they will all be consistent. I will re-check it in 500 miles to make sure it is tight. I was doing this in the middle of the night, and didn't want to stop, so I motored on.
I put the electric module back on and the clip, and grabbed the shims, and started looking for the right combination. This is kind of tricky, but take your time, and don't be afraid to remove and put in the carrier as many times as you need to to get this right. I put the same amount of shims on both sides to start with. and put the carrier in. Of course it went in easy and was too tight to the pinion. Had no backlash. I only had So I removed 10thousandths on the passenger side and added it to the left side till I got my right backlash using a dial indicator and a caliper to measure the shims. Once I got the backlash correct I added the same sized shims to both sides to get a preload on the carrier bearings. This is a good time to do a pattern check. Once you have it right, you should have about 5 ticks of backlash on the scale, and it should be some what hard, but not impossible to install and remove the carrier.
Once you get the carrier shims you need, pull the carrier back out and the pinion. At this point I filled the pumpkin with t-shirts and drilled the half inch hole for wire harness. I cleaned all of the shavings out and then installed all of the new pinion bearings and slingers, and pinion, crushing the sleeve to 25 inch pounds. This is another tricky part, as I am not strong enough to crush the sleeve, nor is my lacking air compressor. I had to put a pipe wrench on the yoke, and put the socket on a breaker bar, and use the floor jack to turn the nut slowly. This actually took me a couple hours to do by myself. This is really the toughest part of the job if you don't have a good gun or compressor. But I was successful in the end.
Now that you have the pinion in, and set the carrier in with the shims you used previously, and re-checked the backlash and re-shimmed if necessary, once you have the magic shims correct, and the carrier is installed and the caps torqued correctly, check the patter one last time. If your pattern is good, then you are done, close it up and put the axle back together, and don't forget to re-fill the diff with some 80-90 gear oil.
This wasn't really written to use to rebuild your diff, but rather use as a reference. Also to hopefully open up the black box, so maybe re-gearing is not so scary. With basic tools this took me two days to do. If you have better tools and lift it can be done quite a bit faster, but I just wanted to prove I can do it in my backyard.
Here are the special tools I used.
Cheap air compressor:
Here are tools that I used but not necessarily these brand names. I am not promoting these tools just showing what I used is all.
Calipers
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014DEXNM/?tag=wranglerorg-20
Dial indicator with vise grips
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009B017LQ/?tag=wranglerorg-20
AND
Inch pound torque wrench
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000KKXOQC/?tag=wranglerorg-20
These are the only special tools I used.
I hope this was worth while, and it may be long, but there were pictures!
