Yendra Built
Member
If you run it without the crush sleeve or the crush sleeve not collapsed the pinion bearings won't be locked tightly together with the sleeve. Your bearings will be preloaded against the rollers and races and between the pinion head and the slinger and yoke, but no tension between the inner races of the cone and roller assemblies. Is this a problem? I think that tension should be there, you wouldn't believe how much that stuff can flex in there when put under severe stress. Such as climbing a rock slipping a tire off and reloading that tire, all your axles wind up and release that energy.
One hard core racer I knew running 9" Ford axles with Moser 40 spline gun drilled axles, and nodular iron case would have us rebuild his 9" without a crush sleeve but using a hard spacer machined to fit for preload and could have the pinion nut torqued to a high load. Buuuut he was running a 500 HP big block Chevy + 250 shot of nitrous.
Wheel bearings on old Corvette rear axles required hard spacers selective fit between the tapered roller bearings even though they were set with .003 to .010 lash.
One hard core racer I knew running 9" Ford axles with Moser 40 spline gun drilled axles, and nodular iron case would have us rebuild his 9" without a crush sleeve but using a hard spacer machined to fit for preload and could have the pinion nut torqued to a high load. Buuuut he was running a 500 HP big block Chevy + 250 shot of nitrous.
Wheel bearings on old Corvette rear axles required hard spacers selective fit between the tapered roller bearings even though they were set with .003 to .010 lash.